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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 















R. 


Burns 





~■ ■..• —-= 

Rollie Burns 

OR 

AN ACCOUNT of the RANCHING INDUSTRY 
ON THE SOUTH PLAINS 

By 

W. C. HOLDEN 

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY 
TEXAS TECHNOLOGICAL 
COLLEGE 


THE SOUTHWEST PRESS 

DALLAS, TEXAS 
















\ r % c \\ 


COPYRIGHT 1932 
W. C. HOLDEN 


AUG 22 1932 

©C1A 54496 


fAA 




To 

Mary Emma Boles Burns 




PREFACE 


This book should have been written by J. Evetts 
Haley. It was he who “discovered” Mr. R. C. Burns 
some years back and who, together with Miss Eliza¬ 
beth Howard West, encouraged him to begin writ¬ 
ing down his experiences. It was not until the fall 
of 1931 that I became acquainted with Mr. Burns. I 
found him to be a splendid source for historical in¬ 
formation. He was on the Plains before the Indians 
were forced onto Reservations j he saw the great 
buffalo herds a year before the first commercial hide 
hunters entered the Panhandle; he witnessed the de¬ 
velopment of the cattle industry on the South Plains 
through the free range phase and then the inclosed 
ranching period j he saw the big ranch give way to the 
onslaught of the nesters; he helped found a city, 
and stood by while agriculture slowly became su¬ 
preme on the South Plains—a series of experiences 
which entitle him to the privilege of being called “a 
pioneer.” Few men are to be found today whose 
active life spans so many phases of West Texas 
history. 

This work is based largely upon Mr. Burns’ remi¬ 
niscences. It is as authentic as his memory is authentic. 
No doubt errors have crept in, for one’s mind at 


PREFACE 


seventy-five is apt to be fallible, especially in regard 
to dates of events which happened fifty years ago. 
At one time Mr. Burns had a large collection of 
records, but most of these were destroyed when his 
home burned in 1915. Fortunately, about two hun¬ 
dred and fifty of his letters were in an old trunk in 
the barn at the time, and these were saved. These 
letters are now deposited with the West Texas State 
Teachers’ College at Canyon. Through the kindness 
of Mr. Haley and Professor L. F. Sheffy they were 
loaned to me for the writing of this book. I found 
them most useful in corroborating the information 
given me by Mr. Burns. 

I have tried to tell the story in Mr. Burns’ own 
diction. That I have not entirely succeeded, I am 
sure. 

I wish to acknowledge the kindness of Miss Lulu 
Stine, Mr. Cecil Horne, Mr. J. Evetts Haley, and 
my wife in reading the manuscript. Mr. Burns has 
worked with me during every phase of its develop¬ 
ment. 


W. C. Holden. 


Lubbock, Texas, January 29, 1932. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. We Move to Texas.1 

II. The Wegefarth Expedition . .14 

III. Establishing a Ranch in 

C_County.30 

IV. A Three-Man Trail Outfit . . 46 

V. Almost a Ranger.57 

VI. Cow-Hunts and Nesters .... 67 

VII. The “22” Ranch.72 

VIII. A Frontier Ball.84 

IX. “Reping” for the “22” Outfit . . 93 

X. The Llano Ranch.106 

XI. The Square and Compass Ranch . 125 

XII. TheIOARanch.148 

XIII. Yarns.171 

XIV. Closing Out the I O A Ranch . .185 

XV. Cowboys.209 

XVI. Turns for the Worse .... 232 

Index.237 


vii 







/ 


CHAPTER I 


WE MOVE TO TEXAS 

It was the last week in April, 1861. A tall man 
wearing the blue uniform of a general in the United 
States army, followed by a number of other men 
wearing blue uniforms, reined his big black horse 
in directly in front of my father’s moving outfit. 
General Lane leaned over in his saddle and looked 
us over for a moment. 

In front of our caravan was a hack drawn by two 
horses. On the seat were father, mother, and I. 
Father, stocky, sturdy, and with long black mustache, 
had not shaved for two weeks. Mother, in her calico 
and sunbonnet which came far out in front of her 
face, looked tired. I was four years old, and the baby. 
That’s why I was allowed to ride on the seat and 
help father drive. The hack was filled to a depth of 
two feet with clothes, boxes of household odds and 
ends, and bedding. A mattress was spread out on top 
of all this, and on the mattress rode Mary, Elizabeth, 
and Florence, whose ages ranged from seven to 
fourteen. 

Behind the hack was our wagon with its heavy 
wheels and long bed. Four mules were hooked to it. 


2 


ROLLIE BURNS 


Two mules could not have pulled the wagon, for it 
was filled to a depth of five feet with all of our 
movable plunder. Perched high upon the seat driv¬ 
ing was Mose, our negro man. Beside him—black, 
fat, and shiny, was Lindy. Behind with kinky, 
tousled heads peering out under the wagon sheet 
were three little Moses and Lindys. On one side 
of the wagon was attached a twenty-gallon water 
barrel, which father had gotten from a saloon keeper. 
Underneath were several joints of stove pipe. Mother 
had persistently refused to leave her cook stove. Al¬ 
though it weighed four hundred pounds, it was se¬ 
curely packed in the wagon, perhaps the most pre¬ 
cious article in it. Behind the wagon were some extra 
horses, and my older brothers, Robert, thirteen, and 
Tom, eleven, were wrangling them. 

“Where are you taking those colored people?” 
asked General Lane in a tone of one who loved 
“colored people” and hated whites who owned 
“colored people.” 

“To Texas.” 

Father was not disturbed much. He had been 
sheriff in Nodaway County, Missouri, for the better 
part of fourteen years. He had taken his chances 
across the Great Plains during the California gold 
rush. He had lived through the lawless months of 
’49 on the Pacific Coast. He had come back to Noda¬ 
way County and had been sheriff again. He had 
hunted runaway slaves in a country in which three- 
fourths of the population were abolitionists. In his 
early life he had grown up in Kentucky along side 


WE MOVE TO TEXAS 


3 


the Austins and Boones, when such characters were 
holding their own with Indians without the aid of 
the United States army. So General Lane and his 
blue-coats didn’t ruffle him much. But it was differ¬ 
ent with mother. She was dreadfully upset, and 
squeezed me mighty tight. 

The general placed father under arrest, and that 
made mother upset the more. The children became 
scared and Mose’s eyes bulged out. We stayed there 
all that day and the next. Several times the general 
questioned father sharply, but he was so busy holding 
up other outfits and doing a lot of other things that 
he didn’t have time to decide what to do with us. 
On the third day he took our negroes away from us 
and told us to go ahead. 

From there on we had to manage the wagon. 
Father drove it; Tom drove the hack, and Bob 
wrangled the horses. Tom wanted to wrangle the 
horses too, and he and Bob were always arguing about 
which one would drive the hack. Occasionally father 
would make Bob trade places with Tom. As we 
passed country stores and little towns, everywhere 
were small groups of men talking about politics and 
the war that was about to start. News had just come 
about the fall of Fort Sumter. Bull Run had not yet 
been fought, but the Yankee forces were gathering 
at Washington to make a drive on the Rebels. These 
farmers, small politicians, and local demagogues had 
strong notions about things. Opinion was pretty well 
divided. One group around a courthouse or post- 
office would spit and sputter, and be-damn “that 


4 


ROLLIE BURNS 


nigger-loving Lincoln 5 ” another group would accuse 
the Rebel, Jeff Davis, and his slave-driving gang, 
of everything bad that had happened since the flood. 
The air seemed surcharged with a tenseness that made 
people restless and uncertain. 

We were on our way from Nodaway County in 
Northwest Missouri to Collin County, Texas. Father 
and his brother-in-law, John Saunders, had pioneered 
in Nodaway County. They had founded the county 
seat, Maryville, where I was born April 6 , 1857. The 
tension caused by the abolition question with all the 
accompanying squabbles over sovereignty, states 5 
rights, and the like, made Maryville an uncomfort¬ 
able place for a Southern man to live during the late 
50 5 s—especially since Nodaway County was pre¬ 
dominantly abolitionist and Republican. In the winter 
of 1860-1861 a Yankee who had lived several years 
in Collin County, Texas, came to Maryville looking 
for a trade. He claimed to have a farm, seven hun¬ 
dred head of cattle, and a considerable herd of horses 
in Collin County. Father dickered with him awhile, 
and traded him, sight unseen, our place in Maryville 
for his layout in Texas. We were now on our way 
to Texas to settle on a place which we hoped existed. 
Father took a big chance, but it was worth something 
to get out of a Yankee community. 

A few days after leaving Saline County, Missouri, 
where we were held up by General Lane, we got 
past the settlements. We came through the Ozarks 
and the eastern edge of Indian Territory. Several 
times we saw Indians, but they didn’t molest us any. 


WE MOVE TO TEXAS 


5 


But mother breathed a lot easier after we crossed 
Colbert’s Ferry on Red River. 

We found the place father had traded for. It had 
a frame house on it, and was fairly well fixed up, 
as frontier places went in those days. The cattle were 
badly scattered, and we never did know how many 
there were. Father never did even try to round them 
up. He didn’t think much of cattle raising. He said 
no one could ever do any good in the cattle business 
unless he was a thief, and father had some old- 
fashioned notions about honesty. He later traded his 
claims to the cattle of the brand he had acquired to 
a Mr. McWhorter for two spans of mules. Father 
gathered up all the horses he could find. There were 
not nearly as many as there were supposed to be, but 
enough for a good start. So father settled down to 
farming and raising horses. 

The Civil War meant hard times to us, though 
we fared as well as any other frontier families. When 
the Federal forces were withdrawn from the frontier 
forts in Texas in the summer of 1861, the Indians 
went on the rampage, but did not raid as far east 
as Collin County. They quieted down in 1862 and 

1863 when the Frontier Regiment, first commanded 
by Colonel Norris and later by Colonel Mc¬ 
Cord, was stationed in a chain of twenty-odd posts 
reaching from Red River to the Rio Grande. In 

1864 frontier defense was reorganized. A home 
guard system was established. The frontier was di¬ 
vided into three districts, and the men of military 
age in the exposed counties were exempted from 


6 


ROLLIE BURNS 


service in the Confederate army and were formed 
into local militia units. Colonel Throckmorton of 
Gainesville was the commander of our district. For 
almost a year after the Confederates surrendered in 
the spring of 1865, there was no frontier defense at 
all, until the posts were reoccupied by Federal troops 
under General Phil Sheridan. During this time peo¬ 
ple suffered dreadfully. The Indians went wild; they 
raided, burned and stole. Before the war some settle¬ 
ments had extended a hundred miles west of Collin 
County, but by January, 1866, the settlers had fallen 
back, and Collin County was again on the frontier. 

My grandfather and all my father’s brothers were 
in the Confederate army. Grandfather was a captain. 
My father’s youngest brother was killed in one of 
the last battles. When the war was over, my grand¬ 
father came to Texas and left with us a negro boy 
whom he had with him as a servant throughout the 
war. Hambone was a little older than I, and we 
played, rode, worked, fished, and fought together 
for several years. 

In 1867, after we had been in Collin County six 
years, father decided to move back to Missouri. He 
thought times were more prosperous up there. The 
new Reconstruction measures were making things ap¬ 
pear mighty gloomy in Texas, and he just wanted to 
go back. We packed up and started. This time we had 
two wagons. The stork had been busy since we got to 
Texas. Now we had Jerry, Maggie, and Maud. 1 
could hardly wait to get started. I was ten years old, 
and had learned to ride pretty well for a kid of 


WE MOVE TO TEXAS 


7 


that age. We had a hundred and fifty head of horses 
to drive, and that job fell to Tom, Hambone and my¬ 
self. 

The most thrilling event on this trip was a stam¬ 
pede. After we had been on the road through Indian 
Territory about ten days, we met an outfit coming 
south with a bunch of horses. When the two herds 
got close together, they stampeded, ran together, and 
headed for the West. Tom, Hambone, and I took 
after them with all the speed we could muster. The 
herd almost lost us, but we managed to stay in sight. 
By taking short cuts we finally managed to catch up. 
The horses had gotten over their scare; and when 
we came up, they divided into their respective herds 
and one herd turned one direction, and the other an¬ 
other. Cattle won’t do that. When two herds mix, 
they have to be cut again. Mother certainly did look 
relieved when we got back with our herd. She had 
been on pins ever since we had gone over the hill and 
disappeared. 

A few days after this we met an old neighbor of 
ours coming south from Nodaway County. He and 
father had a long talk. When they got through 
father came around and said, “Well, we’re heading 
back for Texas.” He faced about and took the back 
trail. It seemed that things were not going so well 
in Missouri. The bush-whacking and jayhawking of 
border warfare had created fierce feuds in Nodaway 
County. Life and property were rather uncertain for 
those who had taken sides, and it was hard to stay 
there and not take sides. 


8 


ROLLIE BURNS 


We came back to Texas and located in Grayson 
County about three miles east of where Denison was 
located some four years later. We spent the rest of 
the summer building a log house on the prairie. It 
had two large rooms with an open hall between, a 
shed room behind, and a porch in front. 

The one thing I loved to do was ride. It didn’t 
matter much what it was as long as it was something 
with life in it. There were several families that had 
boys of my age living around in several miles of us. 
On Sundays father made all of us go to Sunday 
school. He was a Christian preacher and had ideas 
as to how boys should be raised. As soon as Sunday 
school was over, we boys struck out for my house 
where we rode the calves until the folks got in. Then 
we would go to somebody else’s house and ride, prac¬ 
tice roping and branding. We made life miserable 
for the younger calves, but the yearlings held their 
own with us. 

A cattle trail ran by our place during the late ’60s. 
It came by Dallas, crossed Red River at Preston 
Ferry and went to Baxter Springs, Missouri. During 
the late spring and early summer lots of herds came 
along this trail. Every time a herd came by, if I 
could slip off, I would follow it for miles on my 
pony. I suppose some of the drivers thought I was a 
nuisance, but some of them kidded me along. One 
boss took a liking to me and gave me a pair of spurs. 
They were too big for me, but I wouldn’t have traded 
them for half interest in a bank. Father put a stop 
to my wearing them though. He said he wouldn’t 


WF. MOVE TO TEXAS 


9 


have any horse he owned ridden with spurs. So I 
had to wear my spurs when I was just walking 
around and not riding a horse. 

When I was thirteen, a lot of railroad excitement 
swept over Grayson County. There was talk of two 
railroads coming in our direction, the Missouri, Kan¬ 
sas and Texas, from the north, and the Houston and 
Texas Central from the south. A few mass meetings 
were held. Real estate agents, merchants, and a few 
farmers got up and told what wonders a railroad 
would do for a country. It all sounded strange to 
me. I had never seen a railroad and could little 
imagine what a train looked like. In 1871 the Mis¬ 
souri, Kansas and Texas reached Red River and 
started building a bridge across it. About the same 
time the Central reached the south boundary of 
Grayson County. The M. K. & T. crossed the river 
and built on nine miles south where the town of 
Denison was laid out and started. The Central passed 
Denison and built to Red River where Red River 
City was started. The two tracks paralleled each other 
for nine miles. The two towns were rivals for a year 
or two when Denison so outstripped Red River City 
that the few remaining inhabitants abandoned the 
place and moved to Denison. 

Perhaps the biggest event that had ever taken 
place in Grayson County was the arrival of the first 
passenger train at Denison. Everybody was there. 
The crowd began gathering down at the little plank 
depot, not yet finished, hours before the train was 
due. But they didn’t mind it. It was worth something 


10 


ROLLIE BURNS 


just to stand and look down the track. Somebody 
spied the smoke when the train was fifteen miles 
away. It was an hour before it got there. I was thrilled 
when the locomotive with its huge smokestack came 
in puffing and snorting. As I look back now, I know 
it must have been a very small engine, but it looked 
as big as a mountain to me then. 

Most of the people in Grayson County had never 
ridden on a train. A few days later the M. K. & T. 
ran an excursion train from Denison to Durant, In¬ 
dian Territory, and back. This was done so as to 
give the people a chance to ride on a train. I went 
along, and was so intent on seeing everything that 
I could not be still. I stuck my head out of the win¬ 
dows, walked up and down the aisles, went from 
coach to coach, and speculated as to how I could get 
on top and ride the thing bareback. When we got to 
Durant, I was out on the steps to be the first one off. 
I stepped off backwards before the train stopped and 
hit on my head. This settled me down a little, but 
on going back I did everything I had done going up 
except step off backwards. This was my first and last 
train ride for many years to come. 

For several years Denison was the only cattle ship¬ 
ping point in Texas. Herds came from below Gon¬ 
zales, San Antonio, and Fredericksburg. From April 
to November there was never a time when there were 
not a dozen herds in sight of the town waiting to 
be shipped. The town was always full of drunk and 
half-drunk cowboys from outfits that had just shipped 
put. There were more saloons in town than all other 


WE MOVE TO TEXAS 


11 


places of business put together. Dozens of gambling 
rackets carried on in the saloons. Down near the rail¬ 
road track were houses of the prostitutes. For two 
or three years Denison was beyond doubt the tough¬ 
est place in Texas. Later there were several other 
towns as bad, but they all took their cue from Deni¬ 
son. 

The place had a strange fascination for boys in 
their early teens, especially boys who loved to ride 
wild horses and play at punchin’ cattle. Mother was 
always worried about us, and I expect if she had 
really known what we were finding out she would 
have been even more worried. 

About this time I secretly traded for an old cap 
and ball six-shooter. I would slip out and take it to 
the bottom lands over near the river and practice 
shooting at trees. I couldn’t get much ammunition, 
but I would practice aiming at trees and posts. I 
would run by a tree on my horse at full speed and 
aim without taking sight. I did this so much I got to 
where I could shoot very well without taking aim. 

There were some more boys who lived in the vicinity 
of the bottom lands. When we would gang up to¬ 
gether, my six-shooter raised my prestige consider¬ 
ably. Sometimes I let some of them practice aiming 
and snapping it. My parents objected to my running 
with these boys; they said the boys were trifling and 
no account. Occasionally, I slipped off and went to 
Denison where I would swagger along the streets 
with my six-shooter showing. I always felt kinda 
skittish when I was parading like this, because I never 


12 


ROLLIE BURNS 


knew when I might meet father. Father and mother 
did find out about the six-shooter in about a year, 
and father took it away from me and hid it. I man¬ 
aged to find it, however, and hid it from him. 

By the time I was fourteen I was breaking broncs 
for all the neighbors. I charged a dollar for riding 
a wild horse, but if I couldn’t get a dollar, I’d take 
fifty cents. Occasionally I would get thrown, but my 
riding was getting better all the time. Horses had a 
fascination for me and I found the wild ones more 
intriguing than the gentle ones. 

The worst whipping I ever got was about a horse. 
Father had a stallion that he prized very highly. He 
would have me ride the stallion on Sundays some¬ 
times just to give him exercise. One Sunday I rode 
him to Red River and found the tough gang I was 
not supposed to run with. The river was low, and the 
water about a hundred yards wide and from a foot 
to a foot and a half deep. The boys had a skiff. I tied 
a short rope to the horse’s tail and started pulling 
the boys in the skiff. We went back and forth and 
up and down. Then I began to trot the stallion. That 
soon got too tame, so I began loping. The afternoon 
slipped by before we realized it. When I got home 
that evening the stallion could hardly walk. Father 
took one good look at him and his face grew stern. 
I began to feel dreadfully uncomfortable. But father 
didn’t say a word until after supper. Then he invited 
me to go to the barn with him, and I knew I was in 
for it. After it was over, I felt terribly mistreated 
and pouted for an hour before I went to bed. I had 


WE MOVE TO TEXAS 


13 


thought about running away many times before, and 
that night I went to sleep determined on it. 


CHAPTER II 

THE WEGEFARTH EXPEDITION 

In January, 1873, Conrad Wegefarth, President 
of the Texas Immigrant Aid and Supply Society, be¬ 
gan organizing at Sherman in Grayson County, 
Texas, a surveying party to locate lands in the Texas 
Panhandle. The Texas Immigrant Aid and Supply 
Company planned to bring several hundred German 
families from Pennsylvania and locate them in the 
vicinity of what is now Hall, Childress, Collins- 
worth, and Donley Counties. There was a bill pend¬ 
ing in the Legislature at the time to create Wege¬ 
farth County from this territory. The bill became a 
law in May, 1873, but was repealed the following 
year when the E. J. Davis crowd was turned out of 
office. The county, as created, was sixty miles square. 

The surveying party, when completed, contained 
one hundred and ten men. Fifty of these were or¬ 
ganized into a military company. The men were 
mounted and equipped with Spencer rifles and Colt 
45 J s. The arms were obtained from the State. Wege¬ 
farth and six other members of the Texas Immigrant 
Aid and Supply Company executed a bond for 
$2,000, insuring the safe return of the arms to the 
14 


THE WEGEFARTH EXPEDITION 


15 


adjutant general’s department. Each man was re¬ 
quired to have two good horses. Captain Wegefarth 
commanded the military company, and was in charge 
of the entire expedition. L. B. Sieker was First Lieu¬ 
tenant, and his brother, Edward Sieker, was Second 
Lieutenant. The other sixty men made up the sur¬ 
veying outfit. The military company was to protect 
the surveyors from the Indians and keep the entire 
party supplied with fresh meat. The whole outfit was 
well equipped. The party had eleven large, strong 
wagons, a good supply of extra horses and mules in 
case some should be lost, a doctor, and even a small 
brass band. 

I wanted to join the military company, but my 
parents objected. Mother was dreadfully cut up over 
the idea even of my thinking of such a thing. The 
sight of the men riding around the country with their 
Spencer rifles swinging on their saddles and the 
handles of their Colts sticking out of their scabbards 
was too much for me. I resorted to every artifice I 
could think of to persuade father and mother. In the 
first week in March the outfit started west. The 
second day after they left I decided I just had to 
go, so I began to make plans to leave that night. 

Father had a fine horse called Jordan. Jordan was 
from race stock—brown, trim, and fast. Father used 
to say that Jordan had more sense than any horse he 
ever had. That was saying a great deal, for father 
had had hundreds of horses in his day. Everybody 
loved Jordan. He seemed one of the family. When I 
decided to go I felt like I had to take Jordan. My 


16 


ROLLIE BURNS 


conscience hurt me a little bit, but then I would be 
leaving the two-year-old colt that father had given 
me. I concluded I had better not take any luggage, 
lest my preparations arouse someone’s suspicions. 
I kept Jordan up that night, got a saddle, six-shooter, 
and spurs ready, and began to wait until everybody 
went to bed. 

It was midnight before I felt I could slip out 
safely. I slept in the shed room with the other boys, 
but it wasn’t they I feared! a cyclone would hardly 
wake them up—it was father and mother. Father al¬ 
ways slept with one ear cocked, and mother always 
seemed to have a premonition when something was 
about to happen. I took an extra pair of pants and 
tiptoed out. When I had saddled and mounted 
Jordan, I paused for a moment and looked at the 
house, and wondered about mother. Then I thought 
I ought to leave word for the folks about where I 
was going. So I went to Alf Sewell’s place and hol¬ 
lered him up. I told him I was going to join Captain 
Wegefarth’s company, and that it would be useless 
for them to try to follow me. 

Then I hit the road for Gainesville in Cook Coun¬ 
ty. It was forty miles and I got there in the late 
afternoon to find that Wegefarth’s outfit had passed 
through a few hours before. I pushed on, and found 
them camped on Elm Creek a few miles west. 

I slept on my saddle and saddle-blanket that night, 
and covered myself with a blanket one of the men 
let me have. I wasn’t used to that kind of sleeping, 
but I was so tired it didn’t matter. 


THE WEGEFARTH EXPEDITION 


17 


The next morning I approached the captain, and 
told him I wanted to join his company. He asked me 
my age, and I told him seventeen. I just lacked one 
month being sixteen. The captain gave me a quizzical 
look, and told me his company of fifty mounted men 
was full. It didn’t occur to me to ask if his surveying 
crew was full. I began to tell the captain how I could 
ride broncos, and shoot from a horse at full speed. 
Some of the men standing around suggested that the 
captain try me out on my riding ability. One of the 
men of the outfit had a bad horse that had thrown 
him the day before. I figured they were counting 
on having a show at my expense; but I had to do 
something to make an impression, or go back home. 
So I told them if they had a bronc to trot him out, 
and if I did not ride him to their satisfaction, I would 
not ask to join their company. I put my saddle on the 
horse, caught the cheek of the bridle with my left 
hand, pulled his head to me, and in a wink was in 
the saddle. It took the horse a second to figure out 
what had happened; but when it did dawn on him 
he began bucking in dead earnest. I encouraged him 
some more by pulling my old cap and ball six-shooter 
and firing into the air. The horse was not hard to ride 
because he jumped straight. There is lots of differ¬ 
ence in the way horses buck. Some buck, or pitch, 
straight; some buck in a zigzag way, and we call that 
the fence-worm j some do what we call sun-bucking, 
or sun-fisher, because they turn their sides to the sun, 
and sometimes their bellies. This last kind is hard to 
stay on, and generally the rider “hunts leather” or 


18 


ROLLIE BURNS 


grabs the saddle horn. But I soon saw I could ride 
this horse, and my satisfaction was great. My chest 
was sticking out so far I was almost busting the but¬ 
tons off my shirt before the horse threw his head up 
and stopped bucking. 

The captain was pleased with my performance. He 
said the company was full and he could not pay me 
a salary, but he would furnish me an extra horse, a 
Spencer rifle, and a Colt 45, and I could go along as 
one of the mounted men. If I had not been where 
I was expected to maintain a little dignity, I would 
have started turning handsprings right there. 

The outfit was soon on the road toward Montague. 
There were very few settlers or ranches between 
Gainesville and Montague, and something like a 
dozen families made up the population of Montague. 
Our next destination was Henrietta, about thirty 
miles to the northwest. Clay County was not organ¬ 
ized until two years later, and Henrietta had only 
three or four log houses when we passed through. 
Some eight or ten miles northwest of Henrietta was 
another town of about the same size called Cam¬ 
bridge. Cambridge was the last settlement, and as we 
continued on northwest we began to realize we were 
on the frontier. We found deer and turkeys, and the 
officers told us to “look out a leetle” for Indians. 
Our next move was for Dan Waggoner’s ranch on 
the Big Wichita River in Wichita County. The night 
before we got to the ranch we camped on Holiday 
Creek. 


THE WEGEFARTH EXPEDITION 


19 


That evening four men were detailed to scout for 
fresh meat, and I was one of the four. Soon after 
leaving camp we sighted three buffalo, the first I had 
ever seen. For days we had been impatient to get to 
the buffalo country, and now here we were. The 
three men told me to stay where I was while they 
undertook to slip up a ravine and get close enough to 
take a shot at the buffalo. I didn’t like the orders, but 
did as they told me. Before the men got in shooting 
distance the buffaloes scented them, and started to 
run in my direction. They looked as big as covered 
wagons, and the closer they got the bigger they 
looked. I hesitated for a moment, and then made up 
my mind to try and kill one. I left my Spencer rifle 
on my saddle, pulled my Colt 45, and headed my 
horse toward the buffalo. I had confidence in Jordan’s 
outrunning everything on earth. I ran up beside the 
hindmost buffalo and fired three shots into the big 
animal. He slacked his speed and directly tumbled 
over. I thought of holding a war dance, but thought 
it best to go tell the others about my feat. When I 
found them, they had tied their horses in a ravine, 
and were cautiously slipping up a hill to shooting 
range. They did not know the buffaloes had fled. I 
rode up and told them how easy it was to kill a 
buffalo. One said, “Kid, quit kidding us.” They 
wouldn’t believe me, and it was only when I had 
gone and shown them my kill that they were con¬ 
vinced. Then two men started skinning the animal 
while the other and I went to camp to get a wagon 
to haul in the meat. They first thought of sending 


20 


ROLLIE BURNS 


me alone after the wagon, but they decided the ones 
at camp would not believe my story; so one man went 
along to vouch for me. 

This killing of the first buffalo made a hero of me, 
among the officers especially. I was just turning six¬ 
teen years, and was rather small to my age; I weighed 
about a hundred and twenty pounds. After that I was 
always one of four men detailed to do scout work 
and keep the outfit supplied with fresh meat. 

The next night we camped at Dan Waggoner’s 
ranch on the Big Wichita. There were some falls in 
the river at this place, but I am not sure whether it 
was the place where the town of Wichita was later 
located or not. The ranch headquarters were nothing 
.more than a camp made of logs. This was the last 
outpost of human habitation towards the northwest. 

We travelled up the Big Wichita to the mouth of 
Beaver Creek, up Beaver Creek twenty or thirty 
miles, and then cut across to Pease River. We pro¬ 
ceeded up the Pease for about the same distance, and 
then headed northwest to the Prairie Dog Fork of 
Red River. It was here we encountered our first vast 
herd of buffalo. The herd was slowly drifting north. 
Deer and turkeys abounded. The valleys of the 
creeks and rivers were covered with prairie dogs. 
Every day we saw herds of mustangs. 

We had an old frontiersman with us who told us 
to look out for a white stallion. It seemed that he 
had been encountered and chased in many places be¬ 
fore, and that no one had ever been able to make 
him break a pace. He could pace faster than any other 


THE WEGEFARTH EXPEDITION 


21 


horse could run. We all kept a sharp lookout for this 
noted pacer, but never saw him. I have since read 
of several story writers who had seen this famous 
horse. He had been encountered all the way from 
Devil’s River in South Texas to the Kansas line. I 
have had my doubts that there ever existed such a 
character in horse flesh. 

In the vicinity of where Collinsworth and Wheeler 
Counties were later located we stopped several days 
and did some surveying. The chief engineer decided 
it would be necessary to go to the northeast corner 
of New Mexico where a monument was supposed to 
be located and run a line from there in order to estab¬ 
lish correctly the boundaries of Wegefarth County. 

Just before we came to the Canadian River in what 
is now Roberts County we came upon another vast 
herd of buffalo. We camped in sight of the herd for 
two days, and had an excellent opportunity to ob¬ 
serve the movements of the herd. The buffalo were 
on their way to their summer grazing grounds in 
Kansas, Nebraska, and the Territories to the north. 
The animals came in waves, one after another. At 
times, a section would be two or three hundred yards 
wide and a mile long. Then there would be a gap 
of two or three hundred yards in which there would 
be a few scattered animals; then there would be an¬ 
other wave. Occasionally, as if by a common signal, 
a section would spread out and begin to graze. At 
these times the herd would be a mile or two wide 
with all the buffalo grazing in the same direction. 
Then, as if by another signal, the herd would come 


22 


ROLLIE BURNS 


together again and start trudging northward. During 
the two days we watched these shaggy beasts, I heard 
the men talking and making guesses as to the number 
of buffalo. The lowest estimate was five hundred 
thousand, and the others reached from that to one 
million. I didn’t know anything about estimating the 
size of a herd then as I had never seen any big round¬ 
ups. Since then I have seen round-ups containing ten 
to sixteen thousand cattle. So in comparison I have 
concluded that we saw at least one million buffaloes 
pass in two days. I later read in a book by Charles 
Siringo where he saw, in 1877, one million buffaloes 
at the big lake near where the stock pens at Amarillo 
were later located. In 1873 the buffalo hunters had 
not yet come into the country, and we little dreamed 
as we watched the herd pass that these huge beasts 
would soon all fall at the crack of the professional 
hunter’s gun. The day we broke camp we spent most 
of the day passing through this migrating herd. 

Just after we crossed the Canadian an Englishman 
in the company, Charles Moore, shot and “creased” 
a sorrel mustang stallion. He and another scout were 
then able to get two lariats on the horse. They 
brought him to camp, but did not know what to do 
with him. I told Moore I would break the stallion 
for half interest in him. Jordan was getting poor, 
and I wanted to fix it so he could rest altogether for 
awhile. Moore accepted my offer. It was getting late 
and I did not have time to ride the animal that night, 
so I put a rope on his forefoot and tied it to a bush. 
Everybody predicted the horse would be dead or 


THE WEGEFARTH EXPEDITION 


23 


crippled next morning. When daylight came he was 
there and not hurt. I decided to top him before break¬ 
fast. The whole outfit turned out to see the show. I 
hit the saddle expecting a hard time of it, but instead 
the horse bucked a few straights and began to run. 
I let him go until he began to weaken, and then 
turned him back to camp. He soon became easy to 
handle, but I always had to keep him hobbled or 
staked. 

Our next camp was on a little creek which flowed 
into the Canadian. Here we saw our first recent 
Indian signs. They had broken camp only a few hours 
before we arrived. On a big cottonwood tree where 
the bark had peeled off, an Indian had painted 
some characters in red. One character, I remember, 
was an Indian with bow and arrow on horseback 
chasing a buffalo. There were distinct signs of several 
travois. (A travois is made by placing a long pole on 
each side of a horse, like buggyshafts, and letting the 
back ends drag on the ground. The back parts are 
lashed together with short poles. The domestic be¬ 
longings of the Indians are placed on this makeshift 
slide, and drug along by the horse.) This party had 
a considerable number of horses. Our men estimated 
the number at five hundred. 

We camped here for three days, and took every 
precaution against a surprise attack. The wagons were 
drawn into a circle and the horses and mules placed 
inside at night. The number of guards was doubled. 
The first night we had a big scare. A herd of buffalo 
stampeded near the camp, and the sound of their 


24 


ROLLIE BURNS 


hoofs was like thunder. The roar lasted several 
minutes. Everybody knew that the Indians were upon 
us. The officers had the bugler to blow a call pre¬ 
paratory for battle. My mettle was up at the moment, 
and I was disappointed when nothing came of it. A 
little over a year after this an Indian war broke out 
in this region and lasted through the fall of 1874 and 
the winter of 1874-1875. The United States army 
finally rounded up all the Plains tribes and forced 
them on the reservations in Indian Territory in 1875, 

We moved on, and a few days later some of the 
scouts working south of the main party reported find¬ 
ing some old ’dobie ruins. About a year later some 
buffalo hunters and a trader from Kansas established 
’Dobie Walls near this old ruin. In June, 1874, a 
battle took place here. About thirty buffalo hunters 
drove off several hundred Indians. 

Grass was scarce in the region. Large areas had 
been nipped clean by buffaloes. We often had trou¬ 
ble finding sufficient grass for the horses. We kept 
moving on to the northwest, stopping over for a day 
or so every time we found good water and grass. 

We had camped near the northwest corner of the 
state when I got into a fight. There was a Frenchman 
in the party by the name of Solon DeGraffenreid. 
When he was drunk he was always contentious. He 
got stewed one day and started picking a quarrel with 
me. My general standing in camp demanded that I 
do battle with him. I started in, but before I knew 
what he was about to do he stabbed me in the left 
arm above the elbow with a bowie knife. T nulled my 


THE WEGEFARTH EXPEDITION 


25 


Colt 45 and struck him over the head, knocking him 
down. Lieutenant Ed Sieker intervened, and when he 
saw the blood spurting from my arm, he said, “Kid, 
why didn’t you shoot him?” 

The doctor dressed my wound, took a few stitches, 
and put my arm in a sling. This incident ended my 
scout work. I had killed more buffaloes than any 
one else in the outfit. There were others who had 
killed more deer and turkeys. Such game was too 
small for me; I always had my eyes cocked for 
buffalo. I had the best buffalo horse in the party. 
Jordan was fast and was not afraid of buffaloes. Most 
horses are afraid and one cannot get them near a 
buffalo. 

After the fight the officers held a courtmartial to 
determine what to do with DeGraffenreid. They de¬ 
cided that he should wait on me until I got well. He 
was friendly enough when he wasn’t drunk. After he 
sobered up he seemed to regret the affair more than 
any one else in camp. For several days he did every¬ 
thing for me. 

While I was convalescing I had to stay in camp, 
and I found camp life exceedingly boring. However, 
I had plenty of time to witness the usual camp 
routine. One wagon was loaded with whiskey, tobacco 
and ammunition. The whiskey and tobacco were sold 
to the men. I did not use tobacco and had no money 
to purchase whiskey. The officers, doctor and survey¬ 
ing crew all had wall tents and cook tables. The 
mounted men had dog tents, two men to each tent. 
The teamsters slept in or under their wagons. I slept 


26 


ROLLIE BURNS 


anywhere I could. We had no tables or special cooks. 
Eight men composed a mess that cooked and ate to¬ 
gether, rotating the various duties. We ate our meals 
cowboy style j and our food consisted of flour bread, 
bacon, rice, syrup, coffee, sugar and fresh meat sifch 
as buffalo, deer, turkey and antelope. 

About this time some of the mounted men decided 
they wanted to go back to civilization. About twenty 
of them entered into a mutinous conspiracy. They 
argued they had better not make any move until the 
Sieker brothers were away on a scout. They had no 
respect for Captain Wegefarth, but they were mortal¬ 
ly afraid of the Siekers. The awaited opportunity 
soon came. The mutineers appointed a spokesman 
whose name was Wright. The men went to Wege¬ 
farth and told him they were going to take the back 
trail for civilization. Captain Wegefarth made a talk 
to the men, and told them they were enlisted in a 
military organization, and could not leave until their 
term of enlistment had expired. At that, Wright 
stepped off a short distance and said, “All of you who 
will follow me, come over here.” Only five men 
went over. Then Wright told Wegefarth they were 
going back “if they had to fight the whole damn out¬ 
fit.” The captain told them that if they left, they 
could not take any provisions of any kind, and he 
put a guard over the commissary. I didn’t know any¬ 
thing about the mutiny up to this point, but I can 
see why the mutineers didn’t want the Sieker boys 
there at the time. Had they been there, it would 
have meant a fight. 


THE WAGEFARTH EXPEDITION 


27 


Ever since I had gotten my arm stabbed, I had 
been having spells of homesickness. It had never 
bothered me as long as I had been active, but loafing 
around camp was different. Somehow I was always 
wondering about what the folks were doing at home, 
and about mother especially. So when the mutineers 
got ready to start, I asked the captain if I could go 
with them. He told me to go. Charley Moore, who 
had “creased” the mustang, was in ill health and was 
given permission to leave also. This made eight in 
all. Wright asked Wegefarth for some salt and flour, 
but was refused. 

We took the back trail with nothing but our horses, 
saddles, and arms. The captain first thought of taking 
our arms away from us, but changed his mind. He 
thought that we might meet Indians on the way. He 
let us take the arms on condition we would turn them 
in at Fort Richardson at Jacksboro when we got back. 
We went back the same trail we had made going up. 
It was easy to follow, for eleven heavy wagons leave 
a pretty good road. We ate buffalo meat without salt 
or bread. We soon found that such a fare did not 
agree with us, for we all took dysentery. At first we 
broiled the meat on sticks over coals, but later got to 
covering it with ashes and roasting it. We finally got 
to broiling liver until it was dry and hard. This 
seemed to relieve us of our complaint. 

On the trip I learned that the six men were crim¬ 
inals of the worst type. They spent most of the time 
telling of their crimes. Some of them had gun-shot 
wounds that were barely healed up. They got a 


28 


ROLLIE BURNS 


peculiar satisfaction out of showing these to each 
other. Charley Moore was all right. He and I threw 
in together and became fast friends. 

On the ninth day we got to Waggoner’s camp on 
the Big Wichita. The cook had just killed a man that 
morning, but he was as calm and collected as if noth¬ 
ing had happened and cooked us a good meal. He 
gave us bread, molasses, beef, and coffee. We went 
easy on the beef, but bore down heavy on the bread, 
molasses, and coffee. 

On the way to Henrietta we came upon a prairie 
fire. It was not a large one, so we decided to stop and 
put it out. We left one man holding the horses while 
the rest of us started fighting fire on foot. We used 
our heavy army overcoats to swipe it out. The man 
holding the horses let them get away, and when we 
caught them my Spencer rifle was gone. I was glad 
of it and did not go to any trouble to find it. These 
rifles were designed for a saddle gun, but were too 
heavy for that purpose. They used a centerfire cart¬ 
ridge, the first I ever saw. 

When we got to Henrietta we got another good 
meal of meat, cornbread, and coffee. Our next stop 
was at Montague. Our victuals were improving 5 here 
we got hot biscuits, ham, eggs, molasses and coffee. 

At Montague we separated into three groups. No 
one went to the trouble of turning his arms in at Fort 
Richardson. Four of the outlaws left for Indian Ter¬ 
ritory, two of them started to Denison, and Moore 
and I pulled out for Fort Worth. I left Moore at 
Fort Worth and went on to Weston, Collin County, 


THE WAGEFARTH EXPEDITION 


29 


where my father had lived before 1867. After we 
had gotten back into the settlements my homesick¬ 
ness had abated, and I decided not to go home for 
awhile. 


CHAPTER III 

ESTABLISHING A RANCH IN 
C— COUNTY 

When I got to Weston I wrote to father, the first 
time since I left home. I wanted to let them know 
I was all right, and had not been scalped by the 
Indians. I was staying around with old neighbors and 
friends while waiting to hear from home. My arm 
was still bothering me. The wound had proud flesh 
in it and was healing slowly. When it finally did heal 
it left a deep scar about the size of a quarter, and 
that arm has bothered me off and on ever since. 

In August, 1873, while I was still waiting, I met 
an ambitious cowman whom, for perfectly obvious 
reasons, I will call Mr. X. Mr. X. had acquired a 
small herd of cattle in Collin County and was in¬ 
tending to start a ranch in C— County. I hired to 
Mr. X. to help drive the herd to C— County. At the 
time the herd pulled out, Mr. X. started four wagons 
loaded with dry goods to Palo Pinto, where he ex¬ 
pected to trade the merchandise for more cattle to 
take to his C— County ranch. Just before the herd 
I was with reached Mr. X.’s range on the W— 
30 


ESTABLISHING A RANCH IN CLAY COUNTY 31 


River, Charles Grimes and I were ordered to cut 
across the country and join the wagons on the way 
to Palo Pinto. We overtook the outfit late the next 
day. The second day after we joined this party, Jim 
Brown and I were scouting along ahead of the 
wagons, and ran across a big black bear and her two 
half-grown cubs. We started after them, and the old 
one took the lead and was soon out of sight. We had 
no trouble keeping up with the cubs. We debated 
whether to shoot them, or rope and take them in 
alive. Roping appealed to us the more. We made two 
or three passes at them with our lariats. When we 
landed the loops on their necks, the cubs certainly 
did cut a shine for a spell. We tried lea'ding them, 
but discovered that didn’t go. Then we tried driving, 
and found that worked almost too well. The cubs 
were strong, and kept the ropes taut for three or four 
miles to the place where we were to camp. That night 
we tied the cubs to a wagon wheel. The next morning 
mine was gone. Jim took his bear to Fort Richardson 
at Jacksboro, and traded him for a gallon of whiskey. 
Of all the whiskey I have ever tasted, that gallon 
was the hardest. One swallow was enough for me. 
It was not unusual during the 70’s and 80’s for one 
to rope a bear. Later, in 1883, some cowboys roped 
a black bear north of Yellow House Canyon some ten 
miles east of where Lubbock is now located. I was 
just across the Canyon when it happened. The same 
year a cowboy roped a bear in the vicinity of Gail in 
Borden County. 


32 ROLLIE BURNS 

When we got to Palo Pinto the boss traded the 
dry goods to Scott and Warren for cattle. The cattle 
had to be gathered and branded. So we established 
our camp on Ironi Creek about two miles from Palo 
Pinto. Scott and Warren’s camp was on the other side 
of the creek. The creek was very rough and could 
only be crossed in a few places. I suppose they placed 
the camps on opposite sides of the creek so the horses 
would not mix. 

One bright, moonlight night a few days after they 
camped there, Comanche Indians attacked Scott and 
Warren’s camp. We heard a big rumpus over there, 
the Indians whooping, and the cowboys firing with 
their six-shooters. There were six cowboys in camp, 
and they were making the bombardment sound 
mighty interesting. Our boss ordered all our outfit to 
the fight, but by the time we got across the creek 
the battle was over. We fired our guns as we rushed 
along just to let the boys on the other side know 
we were coming. None of the Scott and Warren men 
were hurt, but they evidently got an Indian. The next 
morning we found where one had fallen and there 
was a pool of blood on the ground. The other Indians 
had evidently carried the wounded or dead one off, 
as was their custom. The Indians used bows and ar¬ 
rows. There were several arrows sticking in the side 
of the wagon and in the ground close by. Another 
boy and I found a bow and a quiver full of arrows 
about a hundred yards from the camp. We supposed 
the wounded Indian had dropped them. I took the 
bow and some of the arrows, and the other boy got 


Establishing a ranch in clay county 33 

the quiver and the rest of the arrows. The cook of 
the Scott and Warren outfit was so scared that he 
ran all the way to Palo Pinto and gave the alarm. 
He said the Indians were massacring all the boys 
at the camp. The people in the town were so alarmed 
they didn’t sleep any that night. When we got back 
to camp our cook was missing. He had taken to the 
brush. He came slipping in after awhile, and wanted 
to know how many of the boys were killed. 

It took us about two weeks to get the cattle rounded 
up. Ordinarily, three or four days would have been 
sufficient time to gather a herd of that size, but these 
cattle were as wild as mustangs, and the country was 
hard to work. The thick cedar brush and numerous 
hills and ravines made it necessary for the boys to 
work close together. When we jumped one of those 
wild creatures it took about two punchers to head 
her the way we wanted to go. 

I was sent up to Palo Pinto one day and got there 
just in time to witness a fight. One of the combatants 
was a red-headed Irishman whose name was Bell, 
and the other was a fellow with a local reputation as 
a bad man. The fight started in a saloon and ended 
in the street. The bad man was larger than Bell and 
soon had Bell down. He was trying to get Bell’s 
pistol. Bell managed to wrench around and take three 
shots at the other’s head, barely missing it each time 
by a hair’s breadth. Nobody around seemed to care 
about interfering. There might have been a killing 
had the sheriff not finally arrived on the scene and 
stopped the fight. 


34 


ROLLIE BURNS 


When we got our herd gathered and branded we 
started to the C— County ranch. One night we 
camped in the Keechi Valley, near the south line of 
Jack County. The next morning about daylight a 
man, bare-headed and blear-eyed, came running into 
our camp. He was scared so he could scarcely talk. 
He said that Indians were at the moment massa¬ 
cring a man and a boy just over the ridge about a mile 
and a half away. Our boss took five men and started 
to the place indicated by the man, on a dead run. 
When they got there they found the man and boy 
scalped, and the Indians gone. 

The murdered man’s name was Walker, and the 
boy was his son. The man who came to our camp was 
Steve Martimer. It seemed that the three had been 
traveling in a wagon drawn by oxen. They had broken 
camp before daylight, and had just started on the 
road when the Indians swooped down on them. Steve 
jumped off the wagon on the far side and took down 
a small creek. The Indians evidently did not see him, 
and he got away, and soon ran into us. 

This affair delayed us for a day and night. Our 
boss sent a man to the nearest ranch house, several 
miles away, to give the alarm about the Indians and 
tell about the murder. The four of us who had been 
left in charge of the herd that morning rode over 
later in the day to look at the dead men. It was a 
ghastly sight. They had been shot with arrows. Both 
had been scalped and had a small rim of hair left on 
their necks. The boy, who was about sixteen, had 
one hand cut off at the knuckles; otherwise, the 


ESTABLISHING A RANCH IN CLAY COUNTY 35 


bodies were not mutilated. We left the bodies in 
charge of neighboring ranchmen who came in after 
the report had been spread around. 

We had been having trouble with the cattle. It 
had been storming and we had scarcely slept at all for 
two nights. We were dead on our feet and were glad 
to get a little sleep that night. 

As we proceeded northward our outfit engaged in 
cattle stealing in wholesale fashion. The brazenness 
displayed by our boss in taking other people’s cattle 
has been equaled in recent times only by some of the 
doings of Chicago gangsters. The boss had two men 
scouting on each side of the trail. These men rode 
through the range cattle on either side of the trail, 
and cut the best cows and all the mavericks they could 
find into the herd. They had a list of brands that be¬ 
longed in Palo Pinto and Jack Counties. From the 
best I could make out these were brands belonging 
to ranchmen whom Mr. X. did not dare to steal from. 
Mr. X. claimed he had a right to gather certain 
brands, but I noticed we always put his brand and 
earmark on all the cattle brought in. His earmark 
was “grub” one and “sharp” the other, thus (XXO 
At that time I did not know what this mark indi¬ 
cated. In later years I discovered that when you saw 
a man “grubbing” and “sharping,” you could put it 
down he was a thief, and nine times out of ten you 
would be right. I came to doubt the honesty of any 
man who “grubbed” the ears of his cattle. 

We moved the herd slowly and laid over every 
other day. The four men doing the rustling brought 


36 


ROLLIE BURNS 


in ten to fifty head every day we laid up. One of 
the boys on night herd told me that bunches of cattle 
were frequently driven into the herd at night. In all, 
the outfit stole nearly a thousand cattle on this drive. 
I have later had cause to believe that a good many 
big cattlemen who became rich and their families re¬ 
spected got their start this way. 

Another boy and I did the wrangling on this 
drive. There were Indians in the country, and the 
boss was afraid they would drive off the horses. So 
to foil the Indians, the other boy and I took the 
remuda olf a mile or two from camp and guarded 
them at night; one of us would sleep while the other 
watched the horses. 

Finally, we arrived at Mr. Xds range on the 
W— River. There were only three other cow out¬ 
fits in C— County at the time. The T. J. A. outfit was 
located on a creek in the southern part of the county. 
The S. W. outfit was on the W— River below Mr. 
Xds range. There was another outfit whose name I 
have forgotten on Y— River at the mouth of the 
W— River. Our headquarters consisted of the chuck 
wagons and a tent. We had no corrals of any kind. 

About a month later Mr. X.’s uncle arrived from 
Z— County with a herd of three thousand long¬ 
horn steers, three years old and up. After the cattle 
were counted and turned on the range, Mr. X.’s 
uncle sent his outfit, mostly Mexicans, back to 
Z— County. The uncle remained with us a couple 
of months. 


ESTABLISHING A RANCH IN CLAY COUNTY 37 


Camp life with Mr. X.’s outfit during the fall 
and winter was strenuous. Our range was about 
ten miles square, and, fortunately, there were no 
other cattle near the boundary. The longhorns were 
in a strange country and were not used to cold 
weather, especially snow. Every norther caused them 
to drift badly. All of the punchers, ten besides the 
cook, had to be up, through with breakfast, and on 
our cayuses by daylight, rain or snow. The worse the 
weather the farther we had to go in order to get out¬ 
side the cattle that were sure to be drifting south. 

Indians raided through the country almost every 
light-of-the-moon. We were not much afraid of their 
attacking the camp at night. Indians were leery of a 
bunch of cow punchers who slept with a revolver or 
two by their sides and both ears cocked. But we were 
afraid they would get the horses. So for about one 
week out of every four we had to drive the remuda 
off to some unlikely place at a distance from the camp 
and guard them all night. Two men took the horses 
out each night; one guarded until midnight while 
the other slept, and then they traded. We were al¬ 
ways glad when the full moon was over and stand¬ 
ing horse guard was done. 

Mr. Xds uncle was a great hunter. As long as he 
stayed with us he kept the outfit supplied with deer 
and turkey, and after he left the rest of us took turns 
at the job. The turkeys were fat on pecans. They 
swallowed the pecans whole and the juices of the 
craw melted the hulls. I have taken a double handful 
of pecans from the craw of one turkey. The hulls 


38 


ROLLIE BURNS 


would be in all stages, some soft and some hard. 
The nut seemed to have a better flavor in the soft 
stage. When spring came the turkeys took to eating 
wild onions, and the meat became so strongly flavored 
with onions we had to quit eating them until the 
young ones got large enough to eat. They ate onions 
too, but their meat was not so highly flavored. 

Turkeys roosted in the trees along the streams. 
They came into the roosts between sundown and 
dusk. That sputtering, clucking noise that turkeys 
make could be heard most anywhere along the W— 
River late every evening. One evening as another 
puncher and I were coming into camp we saw about 
thirty turkeys coming into roost, but were still over 
a mile from timber. We took after them on our 
horses, and they flew about three hundred yards. 
When they lit on the ground we were close to them. 
They flew again but not so far. When they lit the 
second time they could not leave the ground any 
more. Then we drove the turkeys to camp, and the 
boys killed them with sticks. This was one of the 
biggest turkey killings I ever took part in. If these 
turkeys had not been so excessively fat they could 
have flown to the timber. 

After Mr. X.’s uncle had been there about two 
months he sold the three thousand steers to Mr. X. 
and went back to Z— County. Along with the 
steers he had brought one hundred and fifty Spanish 
horses which he also sold to Mr. X. Fifty of these 
horses were unbroken. Mr. X. wanted some one to 
break them. I told him I would take the job for five 


ESTABLISHING A RANCH IN CLAY COUNTY 39 

dollars a month extra. I was already getting twenty- 
five dollars a month. He agreed and gave me three 
months to get the breaking done. It was a hard job. I 
had to do all my regular work and average breaking a 
horse in less than two days. Inasmuch as one horse 
had to be ridden and handled daily for a period of 
three to ten days, depending on how wild he was, I 
had to ride several bucking horses everyday. Some 
of them were comparatively easy to ride and some 
were veritable devils. When I got my saddle on one 
especially bad, I rode him just as far as he could go. 
The next time his gusto was not so manifest. Mr. X. 
got this bunch of horses broke for thirty cents apiece. 
The usual difference in the price of a broke horse 
and an unbroke one was five dollars. Before I got 
through with the j ob I had my fill of riding bucking 
horses. After that experience I rode one occasionally, 
but I never had any desire to ride them in wholesale 
quantities. 

During the winter about a hundred of our cattle 
wandered off. We had an idea that they had gone 
into the Big W— country. The boss told three 
other punchers and myself to pack a horse with chuck 
and bed rolls and go find the cattle, and not to come 
back until we had found them. The weather was 
dreadfully cold. About thirty miles from the ranch 
we located a temporary camp, and next morning 
started out in pairs to look for the cattle. My partner 
and I rode about five miles, and decided to separate. 
We agreed to meet again at a certain point. I had 
not gone far when I ran across several buffaloes. I 


40 


ROLLIE BURNS 


gave chase and got pretty close to one. My horse was 
afraid and kept slinging his head about, and trying to 
head off another way. I finally maneuvered up within 
pistol range. I was slightly behind the buffalo and 
to his right, and had to fire at a cross angle across 
my horse’s head. Just as I fired, my horse gave a wild 
swing and caught the bullet right in the top of the 
head. The horse never knew what hit him. We rolled 
over together, but somehow I got up unhurt. There 
I was, afoot, in an Indian country, five miles from 
camp, with a saddle, saddle blanket, six-shooter, and 
cartridge belt. I got all these things on my back and 
started hoofing it back to camp. I had not gone far 
when my partner topped a hill a couple of miles away 
and saw me. We put my luggage on his horse and 
we both footed it back to camp. A few days later we 
found the cattle. When we got back to the ranch I 
told the boss my horse had fallen and broken his 
neck. I didn’t like to do that, but I knew he would 
charge me twice the value of the horse and take it 
out of my wages. He was so pleased over our finding 
the cattle that he didn’t say much about the horse. 

We saw lots of coyotes that winter. They were 
mostly in bunches of twenty-five or thirty. Coyotes 
are cowardly creatures. They never attack anything 
unless they have every advantage and are mighty 
sure of themselves. They won’t take chances like a 
lobo will. They lived for the most part on small 
game such as rabbits, turkeys, small antelope and 
deer. If they could find a small calf with its mother 
away they would pounce on it. Occasionally, if they 


ESTABLISHING A RANCH IN CLAY COUNTY 41 


got hungry enough and if the pack were large 
enough, they would attack a grown cow. Instead of 
snapping at the ham strings in the back legs like lobos 
did, they grabbed the tail. We found lots of cows 
that winter with their tails bitten off. Coyotes are 
mighty shy. In later years, when we were driving on 
the trail, we sometimes killed a beef when we camped 
at night. We always drove the animal to be slaugh¬ 
tered up close to the wagon so we wouldn’t have to 
carry the beef so far. During the night coyotes would 
slip up within fifteen feet of where men were sleep- 
ing to get the head and entrails of the carcass. Many 
times I have raised up on my elbow and killed a 
coyote with my six-shooter. 

Mr. X. was a tough man. He kept whiskey in 
camp by the barrel, together with a supply of tobacco, 
ammunition, and cheap clothing suitable for cow 
punchers. He sold these articles to the boys at a high 
price. He would play cards with the punchers for a 
quart of whiskey or anything else the boys wanted, 
and he nearly always won. In this way he managed to 
fleece the punchers out of most of the wages they had 
coming. During the winter two men came to camp 
and hired to Mr. X. One was fleshy, and we called 
him “Fatty.” The other was slim and bony, and we 
called him “Bones.” If they had any other names we 
never did know what they were. They were sharp 
with the cards, and got to playing seven-up and poker 
with Mr. X. They soon cleaned him of all the money 
he had as well as a couple of horses. The boss was a 
bad loser. When he lost his third horse, he put on 


42 


ROLLIE BURNS 


a regular two-gun gambling house display. If “Fat¬ 
ty” and “Bones” had bucked up, we would have had 
a killing. As it was, though, “Fatty” and “Bones” 
slipped out and left for parts unknown. 

The cook’s name was “Soggy.” He was a dirty, 
filthy fellow. He never washed his hands (or any of 
the rest of his person for that matter) unless he got 
them wet by accident when he was mucking out the 
pots and pans. He chewed tobacco, and the juice had 
a way of running down his chin from the corners of 
his mouth. I often saw him spatter ambeer in the sour¬ 
dough, but cow punchers were not very finicky about 
their victuals in those days. Soggy was in cahoots with 
the boss, and kept an eagle eye on the wagon con¬ 
taining the merchandise—clothing, ammunition, to¬ 
bacco and whiskey. It was his business to sell these 
commodities and charge them against our “time.” 

Mr. X. furnished the outfit with flour, beans, 
coffee, molasses, salt, and soda, but we had to rustle 
our meat. That was easy to do as game was plentiful. 
Occasionally we took a notion for buffalo. A couple 
of us would take a pack horse and go over into 
W— or A— Counties, as few buffalo ever came 
into C— County. If we wanted beef, we had orders 
to kill a stray. Any hand who would have killed an 
animal with Mr. X.’s brand on it would have gotten 
fired. 

There were no slickers in those days; at least, if 
there were, I had never heard of them. The punchers, 
if they could, procured a blue army overcoat with a 
cape attached to keep the rain off. The material in 


ESTABLISHING A RANCH IN CLAY COUNTY 43 

these coats was so tightly woven they would turn the 
hardest rain. They were very hard to get. They could 
not be purchased in a legitimate fashion at all. One 
had to barter for them clandestinely from the soldiers 
stationed at the various army posts. The soldiers 
would tell their commanding officer they had lost 
their coats and get new ones issued. The boys in our 
outfit who were lucky enough to have coats got them 
from the negro soldiers at Fort Richardson. The 
usual price of a coat was a quart of whiskey. The 
punchers who had no coats would cut a cross in the 
middle of a blanket and put their heads through this 
slit. Practically all the blankets in the outfit had a 
U. S. on them and were procured in the same way 
as the overcoats. 

Each of us wore a large handkerchief, usually red, 
around our necks. We used this for drying our faces 
after washing, for wiping the sweat from our faces 
in hot weather, for covering our ears in cold weather, 
and for blindfolding our horses when occasion de¬ 
manded it. We never got a bath, shave or hair cut 
until we went to town, which was once or twice a 
year. When we did go in our beards were two to four 
inches long and our hair was down to our shoulders. 
Occasionally we had a swim, if we could find a hole 
deep enough. Once in a while we made an effort to 
wash our clothes, but it didn’t amount to much* be¬ 
cause we washed them in muddy creek water, and we 
never had any soap. We usually stayed in the water 
while our clothes were drying on bushes. 


44 


ROLLIE BURNS 


I left Mr. X.’s outfit in August, 1874. A short 
time after I left, he killed a man. It was only a 
starter for him though, as I understood he marked 
up several notches on his gun after that. I had been 
away from home seventeen months and decided I 
wanted to see the folks. They were awfully glad to 
see me. For several days after I got home, the folks 
and the neighbors who came in to see me “oh’ed” 
and “ah’ed” about how much I had grown and filled 
out. I gave the boys in the community several thrills 
by showing them the scar in my left arm. 

I had left a girl down in the timber not far from 
home. I guess I must have been in love with her, for 
I had spent many an hour thinking about her while 
I had been away. Anyway, I didn’t lose any time 
in getting over to see her the first Sunday after I 
got home. She had two sisters and six brothers rang¬ 
ing from ten to twenty years of age. 

There were some more visitors, and everybody 
couldn’t eat at the first table. One of the girls was 
kept busy shooing the flies off the table with a long 
willow branch which she waved back and forth. The 
younger boys who had to wait were hanging around 
the table. One of them was right behind me with his 
foot on the round of my chair. We got through eat¬ 
ing chicken, gravy and the like, and came to the 
trimmings. Now, I was just seventeen months be¬ 
hind on pie and cake, so I asked for a second piece 
of pie. I suppose my girl’s brothers were kinda behind 
on pie too, because the brat holding on to my chair 


ESTABLISHING A RANCH IN CLAY COUNTY 4^ 

said in a stage whisper that everybody heard, “Eat 
meat, confound you!” 

I suppose I turned crimson behind my ears, but it 
didn’t embarrass me nearly as much as it did the girls. 
I had been short on pie and cake and long on meat; 
I had the pie on my plate, and I did not offer to 
give it up. After I recovered myself, I felt sorry for 
my girl. She looked as if she wanted to go through 
a knot hole in the floor. 


CHAPTER IV 

A THREE-MAN TRAIL OUTFIT 

In September, 1874, I hired to George B. Lov¬ 
ing. Loving at that time was devoting all of his time 
to buying cattle in Jack and Wise Counties, driving 
them to Denison, and shipping to Chicago to market. 
He bought the cattle in large bunches and small 
bunches, mostly small. He had a rounding-up outfit 
which did nothing but go around and gather these 
cattle. Then he had twelve three-men trail outfits 
which received the cattle from the rounding-up out¬ 
fit and drove them to Denison. 

The equipment for a three-man outfit was carried 
on a pack horse, or mule. It consisted of one pair of 
blankets for each man, a small frying pan, a butcher 
knife, a coffee pot, a coffee grinder, and a small cook¬ 
ing oven. Sometimes we did not have an oven and 
just cooked the bread by twisting the dough on a 
stick and holding it over a fire. Our provisions con¬ 
sisted of half a sack of flour, a strip of bacon, several 
pounds of parched coffee, salt, black pepper, and 
baking powder. We mixed the biscuits in the flour 
sack. We kept a small piece of sourdough in the top 
of the sack. We would roll the top of the flour sack 
46 


A THREE-MAN TRAIL OUTFIT 


47 


down, add baking powder, salt, and water to the sour 
dough and mix a batch of biscuits, always leaving 
some dough to sour for next time. Occasionally we 
would pass a ranch or farm house and get the wife 
to bake us a batch of biscuits. We always furnished 
the material. Sometimes she would not charge us 
anything for the baking, but if she did, the customary 
price was ten cents a dozen. 

We usually drove about three hundred head at a 
time. That constituted a train load. A car held from 
twenty-six to thirty head, and a train contained from 
ten to twelve cars. Locomotives were small at that 
time, and road grades were much steeper than later. 

A three-man outfit was a sort of combination be¬ 
tween a drive and a drift. Two men did most of the 
work. They maneuvered all around the herd. Instead 
of stringing the herd out, they drove the cattle in a 
bunch. The pack horse was herded along with the 
cattle. The boss was usually on ahead looking for 
water, selecting a camping place, or getting some 
housewife to cook some biscuits. Guard duty at night 
was divided into three shifts of about two and a half 
hours each. A three-man outfit could make better time 
than a larger outfit because it didn’t take so long to 
water and fill up. 

While working for Loving I saw several one-man 
outfits. A one-man herd usually numbered about one 
hundred and fifty. A Mr. Kimberlin went alone from 
Jack County to Denison for three or four years. He 
would employ a couple of cowboys for two days to 
help him break the cattle to the trail. He had a pack 


48 


ROLLIE BURNS 


horse to carry his camping equipment. He drifted the 
cattle during the day and slept during the night. 
When cattle got up from the bed ground in the night, 
they always started bawling. The driver always slept 
with both ears open. When the bawling started, he 
would get up and walk around the herd until the 
cattle bedded down again. Cattle always get up about 
midnight, mill around a little, and then bed down 
again. Grass and water were usually plentiful on the 
trails from Palo Pinto, Jack, and Wise Counties to 
Denison, and most any herd is easy to manage when 
it is full of grass and water. 

I started to work for Loving near the end of the 
driving season in 1874, and made only three trips 
that fall. Pat Sweeney was the boss, and Charley 
Sibley and I were the crew. On our third trip we had 
a little catastrophe. Our pack animal was a mule. In 
the late afternoon just as we were going down Jim 
Ned Mountain in Jack County the pack slipped to 
one side a little bit so that the coffee pot got under 
the mule’s belly. We always carried the butcher knife 
in the coffee pot with the handle down. It was a little 
too long, so we cut a slit in the coffee pot lid, and let 
a half inch of the end of the blade stick out through 
the slit. When the point of the butcher knife got to 
jabbing the mule’s belly, he began to pitch. The more 
he pitched, the more the knife jabbed him. 

Before we could stop him, he had scattered our 
grub over about a half acre. He was not hurt much; 
the skin was cut in several places, but the wounds 
were not deep. The bad part of it was it was our 


A THREE-MAN TRAIL OUTFIT 


49 


first day out and we didn’t have a thing left to eat. 
We were hungry the most of that trip. We managed 
to get a little grub from a few other outfits we passed, 
and from the few ranch houses along the way. 

When we laid off for winter, I went home and 
stayed until June, 1875. Then I made five more 
drives for Loving during that summer and fall. 
Sweeney, Sibley and I made up our outfit again. On 
the last drive of the fall we had another calamity 
to happen to our grub supply. We were about eight 
miles from Gainesville when a severe rainstorm be¬ 
gan and lasted all night. We did not get any supper 
and we had to stay up all night with the cattle. The 
next morning we found our flour and coffee water- 
soaked. Then we decided to broil some bacon, but 
found our matches were wet. Sweeney gave Charley 
some money and sent him to Gainesville to get some 
provisions. Sweeney and I started on with the herd. 
About noon we saw Charley coming back. We threw 
the cattle off the trail and got ready for a big feed, 
as we had not eaten anything for twenty-four hours. 

Charley came up and said, “Here she is, boys.” 
“She” turned out to be a watermelon and a pint of 
whiskey. Sweeney didn’t say anything for a moment. 
I have never been able to figure out whether it was 
because he could not think of words strong enough 
to express himself just then, or whether it was be¬ 
cause he thought of so many forceful expressions that 
they all got jammed in his throat. But when he did 
get going, he got exceedingly eloquent. When he 
managed to cool down a little, he left Charley to 


50 


ROLLIE BURNS 


mind the herd while he and I rode to Gainesville 
to get a square meal. 

After we got to Denison, I was in a barber shop 
when one of Loving’s other bosses came in to get a 
general cleanup. He was slim, rawboned, and had a 
prominent Roman nose. He looked pretty woolly, as 
it had been about thirty days since he had been in 
a barber shop. When the barber got a good lather on 
Parker’s face, one of the local town bullies came in 
and said to the barber, “How long is it going to take 
you to finish shaving that damn corpse?” Parker 
raised up in the chair, drew his six-shooter, and took 
a shot at the fellow just as he went out of the door. 
After that, everybody was mighty polite to Mr. 
Parker every time he went in to get a shave. 

I spent the winter of 1875-1876 at home in Gray¬ 
son County. In the spring of 1876, Mr. Alf Sewell, 
a neighbor to my father, sold his farm with the view 
of migrating to Little Lost Valley in Jack County. 
He employed me to drive his little herd of cattle, 
about one hundred and fifty head in all. Mr. Sewell 
delegated his twelve-year-old boy to help me while 
he and his wife followed behind us with a couple 
of two-horse wagons loaded with moving plunder. 
He told me to take the lead and he would camp 
where and whenever I said. This was the first time 
I ever bossed a herd, and although I did practically 
all the work, I just couldn’t get over the feeling that 
I was the boss. The boy was some help to me during 
the day, but I did all the night guarding. In the 
daytime we were a two-man outfit, , and at night a 


A THREE-MAN TRAIL OUTFIT 


51 


one-man outfit. After bedding the cattle down at 
night, I would stake my horse near the herd, and lie 
down near the cattle. If the cattle would get restless 
and start moving off, I would drive them back on 
foot. A few times I did not wake soon enough and 
the cattle became scattered. On such occasions I would 
mount my horse and drive them back to the bed 
ground. 

When we arrived in Little Lost Valley we made 
a camp, and a sfiort time later Mr. Sewell sent the 
boy and me to Fort Worth for lumber and put me 
to drive the oxen. The boy was to follow behind me 
with a two-horse wagon. When we arrived at Fort 
Worth we put up at the wagon-yard on Main Street 
and went uptown to see the lumberman. He told me 
that he did not have all the lumber on my bill in 
stock, but he had a carload of lumber coming in the 
next day when the first freight on the Texas and 
Pacific would arrive at Fort Worth. There was noth¬ 
ing to do but to wait, and we were more than glad 
to do that. Fort Worth was a typical frontier cow- 
town at that time. The main Kansas cattle trail ran 
close by and crossed the river just west of where 
the courthouse is now located. The town was full of 
cowboys, saloons, and all the other things that go 
with punchers and whiskey. I wanted to cut loose and 
do all the things done by a “cowboy come to town,” 
but I had the kid with me, and I kinda felt re¬ 
sponsible for him. 

That night we cooked our own supper, and slept 
on the floor of the bunk house at the wagon-yard. 


52 


ROLLIE BURNS 


The next morning we went down to see the train 
come in. Nearly everybody in town and for miles 
around was down by the railroad. Some were in 
wagons, some in buggies, some were horseback, and a 
lot more were hoofing it like we were. The last mile 
or so of the railroad was not on a dump at all, but 
the crossties were laid on the turf. I suppose they 
did this because they were under contract to have a 
train in town by a certain time. We had not been 
down there long when we saw smoke down the track. 
Everybody gave a big yell. After awhile the train 
came pulling in—very slowly because the turf under¬ 
neath the crossties was giving pretty badly. The loco¬ 
motive was hot and panting and seemed exhausted. 
It was pulling twelve or fifteen freight cars. The 
crowd gave another yell as the train pulled in and 
stopped. 

It was next day before we got our wagons loaded 
and headed west. The weather was hot and the oxen 
contrary. The flies nearly drove them crazy, and 
every time we passed some trees those pesky oxen 
would hike for the shade. It didn’t do much good to 
try to stop them, for when an ox gets his head set, 
there is just one way to stop him, and that is to kill 
him. I felt like murdering the whole bunch plenty 
of times. They got the wagon in all kinds of jack¬ 
pots, and almost turned it over several times. 

To make matters worse, the boy got sick, and be¬ 
came unable to drive his team. I made a bed for him 
on his wagon, tied his team on behind my ox wagon, 
and drove the rest of the way home. Before I got 


A THREE-MAN TRAIL OUTFIT 


53 


back to Sewell’s place I vowed I would never start 
out with another ox outfit as long as I lived. I helped 
Mr. Sewell build his house, and left for home. 

When I got to Denison I got a job for the fall and 
winter with a butcher by the name of John C. Den¬ 
ney. My wages were ten dollars a month and board. 
However, the dignity of my position made up for 
what I didn’t get in wages. I was the purchasing 
agent for the firm. I went around the country buying 
fat cattle, sheep, and hogs for the meat market. I 
had a big time that winter. While going about the 
country I heard about all the parties and dances for 
miles around. I always saw to it that my official duties 
made it necessary for me to stay in the vicinity of 
the party or dance the night that it took place. 

During the fall Denney persuaded me to ride a 
three-year-old steer on the main street in Denison. 
He advertised that at two o’clock of a certain after¬ 
noon, the buffalo hunter, scout, cow-puncher, and 
bronc buster, Rollie Burns, would ride a wild steer 
on Main Street. At the time set I was there with the 
steer. The street was lined with people. Farmers had 
come in for miles around to see the exhibition. Deni¬ 
son was no longer the wild, rollicking place it had 
been a few years before. Fort Worth and Fort Griffin 
in Shackelford County had eclipsed Denison’s repu¬ 
tation. So the spectacle of a puncher riding a wild 
steer down Main Street would be a reminiscence of 
the old days, and the people turned out to see it. 
The steer did a good job of bucking for a block or so, 


54 


ROLLIE BURNS 


and then, raising his head, started running down the 
middle of the street. Mr. Denney ran along side of 
us on his horse, roped the steer, and I got off. 

The job of riding over the countryside and look¬ 
ing at pigs finally got old to me, and when spring 
(1877) came I was fired with a desire to go to Jack 
County and get a job on a ranch. When I got to Jack 
County I found jobs scare in that vicinity. At Jacks- 
boro I met Major Carnes, a beef buyer. He had a 
small outfit and was going to Fort Griffin to look 
for some cattle to buy. He invited me to go along 
with him. When we got to Fort Griffin he didn’t find 
any beeves to purchase. We loafed around the place 
for awhile and found life there fast and wild. 

At the time Fort Griffin was the principal supply 
base for the buffalo hunters for two hundred miles 
to the west. A new cattle trail to Dodge City, Kansas, 
had just been started by the place, and Fort Griffin 
was the last point where trail outfits could get sup¬ 
plies until they got to Kansas. 

On a hill to the south was the fort where soldiers 
were stationed. In the valley north of the fort was 
the town called the “Flats.” The town was made up 
of two or three general supply stores, a dozen saloons, 
several restaurants, small dives, and houses of lewd 
women. The houses for the most part were pickets 
with flat roofs made of poles and dirt. Beyond the 
town was the camp of the Tonka way Indians. The 
“Flats” were alive and hustling during the day. 
Freighters were unloading wagons, trail outfits were 
taking on supplies, the wagons of buffalo hunters 


A THREE-MAN TRAIL OUTFIT 


55 


were loading out, and hide freighters were getting 
ready to start to Fort Worth. Alongside this busy 
element was another, half drunk, boisterous, and bent 
on raising hell. Soldiers, Tonks, hunters, punchers 
from passing trail outfits, adventurers and despera¬ 
does all mingled together and played the saloons 
and gambling rackets. Robbery was frequently per¬ 
petrated in broad daylight, and at night the “Flats” 
was a din of ribaldry, lewd women, designing gam¬ 
blers, and drunken thieves. 

Major Carnes heard of an old army friend of his 
who had a buffalo camp about one hundred and fifty 
miles to the northwest. After sampling the gay life 
of the “Flats” a few days, the Major decided to 
pay his friend a visit out in the buffalo country. He 
left one man at Fort Griffin (he was glad to stay) 
with the horses and took two others and myself with 
him. As we travelled northwest we saw several small 
herds of buffalo, but they were not nearly as plenti¬ 
ful as I had seen them in the Panhandle in 1873, be¬ 
fore the slaughter began. We found the camp of the 
Major’s friend on Catfish Creek just below the cap- 
rock of the Plains. As we approached the Caprock 
from the east, I thought it was a long, flat mountain. 

This was the first buffalo hunter’s camp I had ever 
seen. The smell about the place was putrid. Pll never 
forget the aroma that greeted us as we rode up. Gas 
masks had not been invented in those days, but if they 
had been, and if I had had one, I would have worn 
it the whole time I was there. About an acre was 
covered with hides stretched over the ground drying. 


56 


ROLLIE BURNS 


Some of the hides had the flesh side up and some 
had the hair side up. I noticed that they turned the 
hides over every two or three days. When the hides 
were dry they stacked them in piles and tied them 
into huge bales ready to be hauled to Fort Worth or 
Fort Griffin. A scaffold built of cottonwood and mes- 
quite poles was used to dry and cure the tongues, 
humps and backstrips. We could stand in camp and 
tell exactly where killings, or stands, had been made 
in the various directions by the buzzards. Thousands 
of buzzards circled lazily in the air above the car¬ 
casses. I am told that buzzards were never fatter than 
during the time of the buffalo slaughter. 

Within a year the buffaloes were almost completely 
exterminated. The sequel to the hide industry was the 
bone industry. After the Texas and Pacific built west 
from Fort Worth in 1880 and 1881, people dis¬ 
covered that buffalo bones had a value. Thousands 
of persons went bone gathering. Bones were shipped 
by the car load and train load from Colorado, Sweet¬ 
water and Abilene. In 1882 I saw a pile of bones a 
quarter of a mile long and ten feet high alongside 
the railroad track at Colorado City. 

After staying at the buffalo camp for a few days, 
we returned to Jacksboro by way of Fort Griffin. 
Major bought about three hundred beeves, and we 
drove the herd to Denison where we loaded the steers 
on the train for Chicago. I spent the rest of that year 
and the winter of 1877-1878 at home. 


CHAPTER V 


ALMOST A RANGER 

In the spring of 1878, Barney Thomas, who lived 
in the same neighborhood as my father in Grayson 
County, wanted to drive a herd of two hundred 
yearlings to Kimble County. Mr. Thomas employed 
me to drive the cattle. He sent his twelve-year-old 
grandson along with me. We had two horses apiece 
and a pack horse. Mr. Thomas was going through in 
a hack, but started us on ahead, saying he would over¬ 
take us in a day or two. It was ten days before he 
caught us. He probably would not have overtaken 
us that soon had we not been held up at the San Saba 
River. That stream was bank-full, and we were wait¬ 
ing for it to run down. Mr. Thomas stayed with us 
until we got across the river; then, he told me that 
we were getting along so well that he would go on 
and wait for us at Junction City, the county seat of 
Kimble County. We reached Junction on schedule 
time without any mishap at all. I herded the cattle 
for about a month for Mr. Thomas, and then he sold 
them. That left me without a job. 

I heard of a camp of Texas Rangers about twelve 
miles up the North Llano River at the mouth of 
57 


58 


ROLLIE BURNS 


Bear Creek. It occurred to me that I might join the 
Rangers. I had two good horses and a Colt 45. The 
more I thought of the idea, the more it intrigued me. 
I went up to the camp to see what the situation was. 
To my surprise I found both Sieker brothers, L. B., 
and Ed, there as lieutenants in the Ranger service. 
I had not seen or heard of them since I left Captain 
Wegefarth’s Company in the northwest part of the 
State in 1873. They both recognized me at once, and 
gave me a hearty welcome. I told them I wanted to 
join the Rangers. They said that Captain Roberts 
was away just then, but that they would recommend 
me when he returned. I waited at the camp until the 
captain came in. When he arrived I had a talk with 
him, and he promised to take me in his company the 
first vacancy that occurred. 

The fall and winter, while I was waiting for the 
vacancy, I spent most of the time on the chuck line. 
I was at the Ranger camp a lot. The rest of the time 
I was making the rounds of the various cow oufits in 
the country trying to get a job. Nobody seemed to 
need a hand at that time of year. They always asked 
me to stay around a few days and rest up, and that 
I was mighty glad to do, because 1 was getting low 
on funds. 

I had to get my horse shod, and that cost a couple 
of dollars. Horses need shoes a lot worse in some 
sections of the country than in others. Where a person 
had a number of horses in his string so he did not use 
any one horse very much and in smooth range, it was 
usually not necessary to have the horses shod at all. 


ALMOST A RANGER 


59 


On sandy ranges, horses were never shod, but oc¬ 
casionally the hoofs and the bottom parts of the 
feet were trimmed to evenness. In dry, hard ranges, 
horses were usually shod in front, and had their rear 
feet trimmed. While in a rocky, hilly country it was 
necessary to keep riding horses shod all around. 
Later, when I was working on the Plains, we never 
shod horses, except occasionally we had shoes put 
on one in order to make him more sure-footed. 

It was customary to have a blacksmith do the shoe¬ 
ing. However, many of the large ranches either kept 
a blacksmith or had a cowboy who could shoe horses. 
The blacksmith’s price for all-round shoeing was a 
dollar per horse. The blacksmith furnished and 
shaped extra shoes for fifteen cents each. These extra 
shoes could be fitted and nailed on by any cowboy. 
The average puncher took a great deal of pride in 
keeping his horse in good shape; consequently, he in¬ 
spected, trimmed, and otherwise looked after his 
horse’s feet with considerable care. Often when horses 
were being turned loose for long periods their shoes 
were removed, and, if still serviceable, were pre¬ 
served for future use. 

There were different types of shoes for various 
purposes. For riding horses an eight-ounce shoe was 
most common, while draft horses took a ten- or 
twelve-ounce shoe. A mule requires a differently 
shaped shoe than a horse, as his foot is narrower. 
Cowboys had their own terminology for the various 
types of shoes. A smooth shoe was called “a slipper,” 


60 


ROLLIE BURNS 


one with corked heel was “a shoe,” while one with 
both heel and toe corked was “a boot.’ 

Men who worked on the range a great deal became 
very adept at obtaining information by noticing 
tracks, especially those of shod horses and mules. 
Many times a man would know by the tracks just 
what horses made them and what their intentions 
were at the time. Certain horses in a group have their 
associates, or “chums,” just the same way as people 
do. If a person knows the tracks of two particular 
“chums” in a group, he can make out something about 
the movement of the herd by following these two 
sets of tracks. If the horses were grazing, the tracks 
will likely separate. If the horses were going some¬ 
where in a walk, the tracks will be close together. If 
they were being driven rapidly the tracks will prob¬ 
ably come together, separate, and come together again 
at intervals. 

One morning in the late fall of 1878 while I was 
still waiting on the Ranger vacancy, I was going along 
the Llano River about daybreak in search of a turkey 
roost. I soon located a roost, and was soinor up a path 
along the river bank trying to get in range for killing 
two or three turkeys with one shot when I heard a 
noise in front of me. I looked down the path and 
saw a big javelina sow and two pigs coming toward 
me. I had seen javelinas before, but never at close 
range. I understand that they are the only indigenous 
species of hog family in America. A grown javelina 
is about three feet long, and his body is thick up and 
down, but thin and rangy horizontally. He has a long 


ALMOST A RANGER 


61 


head and snout, and the length of his head is about 
a third of that of his body. A javelina’s teeth are dif¬ 
ferent from a hog’s. His upper tusks are directed 
downwards, and are very sharp; he uses them most 
effectively in a fight. His bristles are much thicker, 
longer, and coarser than a hog’s. The bristles are 
especially long on his throat, head, and nape of his 
neck. The color of a javelina is grey with the ends 
of the hair slightly frosted. The hair seems to be 
more grey in the winter than summer. I don’t know 
whether the color actually changes with the seasons, 
or whether the deadened hue of vegetation in winter 
only makes it appear to change. I have seen two kinds 
of javelinas, one with a solid color, and one with a 
white band, or collar, behind its shoulders. 

I understand that Indians, Mexicans, and some 
white people eat the javelina. The meat is darker 
and tougher than a hog’s meat. The javelina has a 
musk-bag located on his rump, and when he becomes 
agitated he gives off a fatty substance with a most 
offensive odor. I am told that people who kill the 
javelina for food cut this bag off immediately after 
killing him to prevent its contaminating the flesh. I 
skinned a large boar one time and had a pair of chaps 
made of the hide. I never did like the chaps; they 
were too stiff and hard. I tried to wear them a short 
time and gave them away. 

Javelinas usually go in pairs, but I have seen them 
in bunches with as many as a dozen in a group. They 
are unlike hogs in that they never have but two pigs 
at a time. They raise their young in caves, holes in 


62 


ROLLIE BURNS 


the ground, and hollow trees. They live on meat 
of such animals as they catch and vegetable matter, 
such as nuts, fruit and roots. 

Javelinas are ferocious fighters, and will never run 
from a man. When I saw this old sow and two pigs 
coming down the path towards me, I did some quick 
thinking. I had only a shot-gun with me, and it 
was loaded with small shot. Suppose I should take 
a shot at the old sow and only wound her. That 
would mean that I would have to run for it, and a 
rangy javelina can run almost as fast as a horse. I 
decided not to take a chance with the shot-gun j and 
instead, I laid the gun down and climbed a tree. 
The old sow stopped, inspected my gun, looked up 
at me, grunted, smacked her jaws a few times, and 
passed on down the trail with the pigs behind her. I 
stayed in the tree until they were out of sight, and 
then came down and went after the turkeys. I killed 
two with one shot. 

A few weeks later another puncher and I saw a 
javelina go in a cave near the top of the river bank. 
We left our horses and climbed up within ten feet 
of the mouth of the cave. Directly a big boar came to 
the entrance and started snapping his jaws at us and 
giving off that outlandish smell. We shot him with 
our Colt 45. Then another one came out, and we 
shot him. They kept coming until we killed a half 
dozen. When no more came we decided there were 
no more in the cave but we didn’t go in to see. We 
considered we had made a pretty good hog-killing, 
anyway. 


ALMOST A RANGER 


63 


A short time before Christmas, 1878, while I was 
still riding the grub line a couple of men in Junction 
asked me to go turkey hunting with them. There 
were plenty of turkeys within a few miles of Junction, 
but they had been shot at, and were so wild you 
couldn’t get within a mile of them. We put some 
camp equipment in a wagon and pulled out up the 
North Llano River about twenty-five miles from 
town and about thirteen miles above the Ranger 
camp. Just before sundown we found the signs of 
a big turkey roost along the river. We made our camp 
about a half mile down the river, cooked supper, and 
waited for the turkeys to come in. About sundown 
we heard them coming and going to roost. They were 
flapping their wings and clucking, and every once in 
awhile a limb would break. It was fully an hour from 
the time they started coming in until they all got 
quiet. There must have been thousands of them, for 
the trees were full for a quarter of a mile up the 
river. 

Then we had to wait for the moon to come up so 
we could get a “bead.” As a rule the turkeys on the 
same limb turn their heads in the same direction. I 
have seen as many as fifteen or twenty turkeys on 
one limb. When one is fortunate enough to get 
several heads in a line, he can kill several at one 
shot. Three were the most I ever killed at once, but 
I have frequently killed two. 

When the moon got up a piece, all three of us 
maneuvered around for position. When we started 
banging, the turkeys started squawking, sputtering, 


64 


ROLLIE BURNS 


flying, and lunging in all directions $ but not until we 
had brought down twenty-four of them. Some of 
them were so fat that they burst when they hit the 
ground. We had to make two trips to carry the 
twenty-four to camp, and carrying four big turkeys 
at a time for a half mile was a big job. Then we 
had to spend half the night dressing the turkeys. 
The next morning we broiled twenty-four gizzards 
for breakfast. When we started in, I thought that 
making away with eight gizzards would be easy, but 
we had gizzard for dinner. The second night, we got 
thirty-two turkeys. We went back to town the next 
day, taking enough Christmas turkeys for the entire 
population of Junction. 

A short time later I started from Junction to 
Menardville (later called Menard). I was still rid¬ 
ing the chuck line. It is about thirty-three miles 
from Junction to Menardville, but was much farther 
the way I went. I rode up the North Llano to the 
Ranger camp where I stopped for dinner. In the 
afternoon I travelled up Bear Creek to the head of 
the Canyon. This route took me out of the brush onto 
the open prairie. At the head of the Canyon was a 
small spring of good water, surrounded by a little 
plot of level ground some forty by sixty feet. The 
plot was inclosed on three sides by a high rock bluff. 
It was getting dark when we got there, and I thought 
it would be a good place to camp. I did not want to 
camp on the prairie, for Mescalero Apache Indians 
were still raiding through that country, and they 
could have seen my campfire for miles. I had scarce- 


ALMOST A RANGER 


65 


ly pulled my saddle off my horse, when I heard a 
rattlesnake begin to sing (rattle). Then another on 
the other side started. That seemed to be a signal for 
a whole concert. It was soon evident that the Canyon 
was full of snakes. There must have been a hundred 
or more within fifty feet of me. Little snakes, big 
snakes, and middle-sized snakes were all shaking 
their tails at the same time, and the stench they 
turned loose would have “made the devil sick at his 
stomach.” Neither my horse nor I had any inclina¬ 
tion to stay at that snake pow-wow. It took me less 
than half a minute to put my saddle on my horse and 
mount him, and we “got a move on”. My horse was 
scared worse than I was, and that was saying a great 
deal. He scarcely touched the ground, and we went 
out of that Canyon like an old maid escaping from a 
room full of mice. We spent an hour finding the 
most unsnaky spot in the vicinity, and that was out on 
the open prairie. We camped without a fire, and it 
was a frosty night. A few years later the Rangers had 
a skirmish with the Indians at the spring where the 
rattlesnakes routed my horse and me. I am sure, how¬ 
ever, if the rattlesnakes had been in session there at 
the time, that neither the Indians nor the Rangers 
would have been there. 

In the spring of 1879 I went on a scouting expe¬ 
dition with Lieutenant L. B. Sieker. He was looking 
for some Mexican cattle rustlers who had been oper¬ 
ating rather extensively in the Devil’s River country. 
We went to Beaver Lake and then on to Dry Devil’s 


66 


ROLLIE BURNS 


River. We saw lots of dry, rough country, but no 
rustlers. 

When we returned, Captain Roberts told me that 
the vacancy I had been waiting for almost a year 
would materialize in about thirty days. As irony 
would have it, however, I found a letter waiting 
for me at the same time from my father telling me 
that my brother just younger than I was dangerously 
ill, and that I should hurry home at once. I saddled 
one of my horses, packed the other one, and left for 
home immediately. It took me eight days to make 
the trip of over three hundred miles. When I arrived 
I found brother convalescing. I could have gone back 
and probably have become a Ranger, but the year I 
had waited together with the fact that something 
might turn up to prevent my appointment caused me 
to decide to give up the idea of being a Ranger. Some¬ 
how I never regretted the decision either, for I after¬ 
wards found out that the man who got the vacancy 
was killed in a battle with some outlaws. 


CHAPTER VI 


COW-HUNTS AND NESTERS 

I remained at home from the fall of 1879 until 
the spring of 1880. In March I went to Jack County 
to look for a cow punchin’ job, and got one from 
Hale, Dunn and Henson. They had only about 1,200 
cattle, but they paid me thirty dollars a month, good 
pay for those days. 

Cattle had drifted considerably from their ranges 
during the winter. The fencing of ranches or general 
round-ups had not yet come into vogue. The cattle¬ 
men of Clay, Montague, Jack, Wise, Palo Pinto and 
Parker Counties met at Jacksboro early in the spring 
of 1880 and organized a cow-hunt. This was not a 
general round-up, but strictly a cow-hunt on a large 
scale. There were about ten wagons with eight men, 
a boss, and a cook to each wagon. These outfits 
started on the south line of Palo Pinto and Parker 
Counties and began to work north. The wagons were 
strung out over a space of about fifty miles, and each 
wagon had a strip of about five miles to work. It was 
understood that no outfit was to get very far ahead 
of the others. Each wagon boss sent word to the 
neighboring wagons twice a week as to his progress, 


68 


ROLLIE BURNS 


and in that way the wagons managed to keep fairly 
well in line. Every man had a list of brands belong¬ 
ing to the cattlemen participating in the hunt. The 
punchers rode through the range examining all cattle 
found. When they found animals bearing the brands 
they were looking for, they drove them to the herd 
which two of the boys were holding at the wagon. 

I was with the wagon farthest east. Our oufit 
worked up the east line of Parker, Wise and Mon¬ 
tague Counties. Our wagon and boss, whose name was 
Gibson, represented Stevens and Worsham in Clay 
County. We worked in pairs, and Henry Hensley 
was my partner. We all called him “Gawk”. The 
name well described him, but he was a bully good 
fellow and a top hand. 

When we got into the Cross Timbers, we found 
the log cabins of a good many nesters who had set- 
led in the valleys. As a rule, these people had little 
and lived on the ragged edge. We found that many 
of the cows we were gathering were being milked by 
the nesters. One day we found a cow bearing Hens¬ 
ley’s brand near a settler’s place. The cow showed 
indications of suckling a calf. We drove the cow to 
the nester’s cow-lot and turned her in, and a calf 
began to suck. A boy about ten years old came run¬ 
ning out from the cabin and wanted to know what we 
were after. Hensley wanted to know how long they 
had been milking this cow. The boy said about four 
years. Hensley asked what they had done with her 
calves. The boy said he did not know exactly, but 
thought they had killed some for beef. There was an 


COW-HUNTS AND NESTERS 


69 


unbranded bull yearling in the lot. We took the cow, 
calf and bull yearling. As we drove them past the 
house, the woman with a half dozen brats holding 
on to her patched skirt came to the door and looked 
daggers at us. I felt a little bit reluctant about driv¬ 
ing off these people’s chief source of existence, but 
consoled myself by thinking that in a few days they 
would be milking somebody else’s cow. We found 
some nesters who had milked cows so long (and had 
perhaps eaten the calves) that they protested vigor¬ 
ously about our driving the cows off. 

Gawk and I played a risky and foolish prank dur¬ 
ing this hunt. Between Decatur and Paradise we saw 
the mail stage coming. Gawk suggested that I get 
on one side of the road and that he get on the other, 
and thus we would play stage robbers and hold up 
the driver. I was in for it. Just before we got to 
him we slipped our handkerchiefs over our faces 
and drew our Colts. We stopped and told him to 
“stick ’em up”. He did, and looked mighty serious 
about it. I guess it was a good thing we didn’t carry 
the joke any farther, as we might have done if we 
had had more time to plan it. We pulled down the 
handkerchiefs, and told the driver that we were 
really not stage robbers, but just a couple of punchers 
on a cow hunt. He seemed immensely pleased at that 
and laughed at our joke. That night while eating 
supper at the wagon, we told the boys about our esca¬ 
pade. Some of the boys were quite thrilled about it, 
but the boss didn’t seem so thrilled. Then he told us 
how serious it was to hold up a United States mail. 


70 


ROLLIE BURNS 


He said it was mighty risky to monkey with Uncle 
Sam’s business. That put things in a different aspect. 
I lay awake awhile that night thinking, and won¬ 
dering if the driver would report us. I didn’t think 
he would, because he laughed as he drove off, but 
then I couldn’t help worrying just a little about it. 
Before I went to sleep I resolved never to hold up 
any more mail stages. 

It took about thirty days to work from the south 
line of Palo Pinto and Parker Counties to Red River. 
When the hunt was over, all the outfits came together 
and consolidated the herds. Then we cut out the cat¬ 
tle belonging to the various cowmen. Then the boys 
representing the different cattlemen took their re¬ 
spective herds and started to their home ranges. 

During the summer and early fall of 1880, I 
branded, herded and wrangled for Hale, Dunn and 
Henson. One day in October I rode out on the range 
where my mount of horses was hobbled to catch a 
fresh horse. He was wild, and I had to rope him. 
Just as I threw the lariat the horse I was riding 
stepped in a hole with both front feet and turned-a- 
cat, heels over head. I hit the ground solid and passed 
out for awhile. When I came to, the horse I had 
been riding was standing nearby holding the other 
horse. I had not known what I did with the rope, but 
it had evidently gone true. I did not think I was 
hurt until I started to get into the saddle. Then I 
found my collar bone and right shoulder were brok¬ 
en. I had to walk a mile back to camp. 


COW-HUNTS AND NESTERS 


71 


The next morning, Mr. Hale took me to Jacks- 
boro to a doctor to get my bones set. The doctor 
worked on me an hour, and thought he had every¬ 
thing fixed. We went back to the ranch and several 
days passed without any relief from the pain. Mr. 
Hale then proposed to take me to Denison in his two- 
horse hack. That ride was one long torture. I had a 
mattress to lie on, but found it less painful to sit up. 
It took two days to get to Denison. The doctor there 
found the bones all out of place again, and worked 
two long hours getting them set. He did a poor job 
of it, and my shoulder has bothered me ever since. 
I could never rope so well after this accident. I 
could still throw a short lariat all right, but I was 
not nearly so accurate on a long lariat. 

I stayed at home until March, 1881, when I got a 
letter from Hale, Dunn and Henson, stating they 
wanted me to start working for them on April first. 
They inclosed a check for $75, saying they had de¬ 
cided to give me half pay while I was convalescing. 
That was a big surprise for me; getting pay for stay¬ 
ing at home and doing nothing was almost too good 
to be true. I worked for them from April until July 
when they sold their cattle. Mr. Hale went to Fort 
Worth to become editor of The Texas Livestock 
Journal y published by George B, Loving. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE “22” RANCH 

About the time Hale, Dunn and Henson sold 
their cattle, John Hensley from the Hensley Broth¬ 
er’s Ranch in Crosby County came to Jacksboro. I 
was looking for a job, and he was needing a puncher \ 
so we soon struck a bargain. 

John and Charles Hensley, uncles of Gawk, 
had drifted their cattle from Jack County to the head 
of McDonald Creek in Crosby County in 1879. 
Their ranch was known as the “22” outfit. The head¬ 
quarters consisted of a half dug-out about ten by 
twenty feet dug in the side of the creek bank. The 
walls were built up about three feet high with poles. 
The roof was made by placing poles close together 
and covering them with buffalo hides. There were 
not any windows at all. In the back side was a fire¬ 
place on which the cooking was done. In the winter 
time the boys slept on the floor, and in the summer 
they slept out of doors. 

About two hundred yards east of Hensley’s dug- 
out were Will (W. B.) Slaughter’s headquarters. 
Will was more pretentious than the Hensley’s. He 
had a four-room “boxed” house. He had hauled the 
72 


THE “22” RANCH 


73 


lumber from Fort Worth in 1878. The Slaughter 
outfit used water from the same spring as the “22” 
outfit. 

The Hensleys had about five thousand head of 
cattle and employed from four to six hands. I arrived 
with John in July and did general range duty until 
September. I had been working only a few days when 
the boss sent me to Singer’s Store to mail a letter. 
This store and another owned by DeQuazy, a French¬ 
man, were located on the headwaters of Yellow 
House Creek about three miles above where Lub¬ 
bock now stands. 

Lured by the buffalo trade, George W. Singer had 
ventured out on the Plains with a wagon load of lum¬ 
ber and a wagon load of merchandise in 1879. He 
went up Yellow House to the last hole of living 
water, and there built a square “boxed” storehouse 
with his lumber, unpacked his goods, and started 
waiting for customers. They were slow in coming, 
for the hunters were leaving the range, and not many 
cowboys had as yet arrived. However, two military 
trails crossed at this waterhole, one from Fort Grif¬ 
fin to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and the other from 
Fort Stockton to Fort Elliott. Few people traveled 
the Fort Stockton-Fort Elliott road, but quite a few 
cattle herds went out the McKenzie trail to Fort 
Sumner, and the cowboys contributed to Singer’s 
business. With the country below filling up with 
cattle, the prospect bid fair for a brisk trade in the 
future—so much so that DeQuazy soon came in and 
put up a store within a hundred yards of Singer’s. 


74 


ROLLIE BURNS 


Neither of them had any live stock except a freight¬ 
ing outfit each. They hauled their goods from Fort 
Griffin and Fort Worth. 

DeQuazy didn’t stay long. There was not enough 
business for two stores, and he could not compete 
with Singer. He might sell his goods cheaper, but 
he just didn’t know how to get along with frontier 
people. Singer’s house became known far and wide 
as Old Man Singer’s Store. 

“When the cowboys pushed up the Canyon with their cattle, 
he was there. When the round-ups drew to a close and jingling 
spurs struck music from the floor of his store, Old Man Singer 
was in his glory. Pack horses were hobbled out, bed rolls thrown 
upon the floor, and when night came the old man left the cow¬ 
boys in charge and went home. Until far, far in the morning the 
good old game of poker held forth in earnest. When money was 
gone, a cowboy reached up and pulled down a box of stick candy 
or a plug of tobacco from a shelf, ‘sweetened the pot’, and the 
game went on. Another went broke, and another, and down came 
a pair of California pants to be bet against a couple of shirts. 
Singer appeared in the morning after the struggle was over. 
Never did a padlock fasten his door, and never was his confi¬ 
dence betrayed to the loss of a cent by these men who gambled 
in zest, but would have shot at a word.” 1 

My boss gave me directions as to how to find 
Singer’s store. I went south and southwest until I 
struck the Yellow House about the north line of 
Garza County. I was then on the north edge of the 
Curry Comb range of Young and Galbraith. Going 
up the Yellow House in the extreme southwest edge 
of Crosby County I came to the L A N C Ranch 
owned by W. R. Moore. Just south of Moore and 


1 Haley, J. E., The XIT Ranch of Texas , 50-51. 



THE “22” RANCH 


75 


west of the Curry Combs was the range of Sam 
Gholson, who had at that time about 2,500 cattle on 
Spring Creek. Up the Yellow House just west of the 
east line of Lubbock County was the ranch of the 
Kidwell Brothers. Their brand was KID. Several 
miles above the Kidwell’s dugout I came to Buffalo 
Springs where a few years before the Causey boys 
had their buffalo camp. Someone else was then occu¬ 
pying the old Causey dugout, but nobody was at 
home. There were three or four hens clucking about 
the camp, so I decided to get my dinner there. I 
found two eggs and one can of tomatoes in the dug- 
out, and I had eggs and tomatoes for dinner. Three 
miles up the creek, I came to Z. T. Williams’ sheep 
ranch. There was a rock sheep corral and a “boxed” 
house. A good spring of water high up on the cliff 
made the location a desirable one. Ten miles farther 
up I rounded a bend in the Canyon and saw Singer’s 
store, diminutive and forlorn, nestling on the south¬ 
west side of a lake which formed the headwaters of 
the Yellow House. The lake covered several acres 
and was fed by springs. When I rode up, a dozen or 
more horses were tied to the hitching rack out in 
front. In and around the store was a motley crowd 
of cowboys, a few Mexicans, and a half dozen Apache 
Indians. I mailed my letter, bought a drink of whis¬ 
key and some candy, stood around awhile, and started 
back. 

A short time after I made the trip to Singer’s 
Store, one of the boys went to Dockum’s Ranch and 
brought back news of Charley Dockum’s being cap- 


76 


ROLLIE BURNS 


tured by the Indians. W. C. Dockum, Charley’s 
father, had opened a supply store in a dugout on 
Dockum’s Creek in the west part of Dickens County 
for buffalo hunters in 1877. When cattlemen began 
to bring in cattle and establish ranches, Dockum’s 
business increased and he built a “boxed” house and 
moved out on top of the ground. Dockum was ap¬ 
pointed postmaster, and for awhile Dockum’s Ranch 
was the only postoffice northwest of Fort Griffin. 

In the summer of 1881, Charley, then about four¬ 
teen, and another boy about twelve, were about three 
miles north of Dockum’s looking for some horses. 
Some Indians saw the boys and gave them a chase. 
The other got away, but the Indians caught Charley. 
He expected to be murdered and scalped but instead, 
the Indians gave him a good whipping and turned 
him loose. Charley didn’t lose any time getting home. 

In September I was sent to “rep” (represent the 
outfit at outside round-ups) for the “22’s” at the fall 
round-ups down the Double Mountain River. Al¬ 
though general round-ups had not yet been inaugu¬ 
rated, neighboring ranchmen cooperated as much as 
they possibly could in planning their work. I was the 
only one “reping” for the “22’s” on the Double 
Mountain, and was attached to Will Slaughter’s 
wagon. 

The wagon had already worked through the O S 
range of Andy and Frank Long, which lay south of 
the Double Mountain River in the eastern part of 
Garza County, and was in the Two Circle Bar, QO 
range in the northeastern part of Scurry and north- 


THE “22” RANCH 


77 


western part of Fisher Counties when I overtook it. 
The Two Circle Bar ranch was owned by a Scotch¬ 
man named Weirn. His foreman was Jim Lane, who 
later, for some good reason, went under the name of 
Jim Cook. When we got to the east side of the Two 
Circle Bar range, in Stonewall County, we crossed 
over to the north side of the river and started work¬ 
ing back west. To the east of the place where we 
crossed the river lay the HIT range of the Hitsons. 
As we worked up the Double Mountain, we moved 
from the Two Circle Bar range into the “80” range, 
owned by Clay Mann. He was located north of the 
river in the southeastern part of Kent County. Next 
we came to Charley Dalton’s range in the east cen¬ 
tral part of Garza County. Just northwest of Dalton 
we worked through the range of Dan Kyle. Then we 
entered the Curry Comb ( ) range of Young 

and Galbraith in the northwest quarter of Garza 
County. Turning north, we worked the range of 
John (J. B.) Slaughter which lay between the Yel¬ 
low House Fork of the Double Mountain and Mc¬ 
Donald Creek. Just north of John’s lay Will 
Slaughter’s range to the east of McDonald. We 
ended the work on the “22” range just north of John 
Slaughter’s and west of McDonald. L. A. Wilson, 
a son-in-law of John Hensley, owned the Paddle 
brand, ( ), and ranged with the Hensleys. 

Late in the fall of 1881, after the round-ups 
were over, Will Sanders and I were looking for some 
“22” cattle to the southwest of the “22” range. We 
had crossed the Yellow House and were traveling up 


78 


ROLLIE BURNS 


a little stream known as Harvey Creek which heads 
at the Cap Round southeast of where Slaton was later 
located. In a hackberry grove near the Caprock we 
found the bleaching skeleton of a man. His clothes 
had been ripped away and his flesh pecked and 
gnawed by buzzards and vermin. Near by were the 
remains of his saddle, pack saddle, and some broken 
arrows. Down the creek not far away were grazing 
four burros, as fat as could be. Every indication 
pointed to the conclusion that the man had been 
killed by the Indians two or three years before. We 
surmised that he had been with the buffalo hunters, 
and had started to Fort Griffln for a supply of pro¬ 
visions, and had gotten this far when the Indians 
found him. 

In December, 1881, the “22’s” established a winter 
camp on the Salt Fork of the Brazos about twelve 
miles south of the camp on the head of McDonald 
Creek. Van Sanders was boss, and John Garrison, 
Will Sanders and myself made up the winter crew. 
We located the camp on a little bluff on the north side 
of the river. It was a dugout about the same size as 
the one on McDonald. It took us several days to 
make the excavation, and we didn’t like the digging 
much. We did not build up the walls any with poles, 
because poles were scarce, and it was to be a tempo¬ 
rary camp, anyway. The pole roof was about five feet 
above the floor, and we had to stoop when we walked 
around. We first thought we would not need a door, 
but the first cold weather came from the east and 
caused us to change our minds. We hustled around 


THE “22” RANCH 


79 


and made a door out of a dried beef hide. The fire¬ 
place was in the back side. 

We transported our camp equipment from Mc¬ 
Donald Camp on our horses, but that was not much 
of a job. We had two Dutch ovens—one for meat 
and one for bread—a frying pan, a coffee pot, a 
butcher knife, three or four sacks of flour and a few 
pounds of salt and coffee. Our beds consisted of a 
number of wolf hides with a few blankets for cover. 
The beds were made down on the dirt floor around 
the walls of the dugout. The hides were from wolves 
we had killed on the range. They were full of fleas 
when first killed, but fleas soon leave a dead hide. 
We brought in a number of buffalo skulls to sit on. 
We had no table of any kind. Our camp light was 
a tin can filled with tallow (rendered up from 
beeves) with cotton rags torn in strips and plaited 
for wicks. 

After we got our camp made we had a few days 
J)f idle time, and we decided to get in our winter’s 
supply of wood. We had no wagon, so we got on our 
horses and started out to look for dead mesquite 
limbs and roots. This kind of wood was plentiful in 
the arroyos leading into the river. We would rope 
limbs and break them off with the rope tied to the 
saddle horn. Then we would make up a bundle of 
wood and drag it to camp. We liked this kind of 
work a lot better than we did the digging. In a few 
days we dragged up enough wood to last all winter. 

There were lots of wild hogs in the country. Wher¬ 
ever we found shinery (sandy land covered with 


80 


ROLLIE BURNS 


scrub oak) we found wild hogs. It was said that a 
man had started a hog ranch in the shinery in Dickens 
County in 1877 5 and a year or two later after he was 
killed by the Indians his hogs went wild. I never 
knew for sure whether this was the way hogs came 
to be in the region or not, but when I arrived in July, 
1881, there were hogs and lots of them. You could 
not ride over a mile or two in the shinery without 
jumping some. They didn’t hear a horse coming until 
you were right on them; then they would charge 
away, snorting and grunting all at once and making 
a noise like a person shifting gears in an old worn- 
out car. They never failed to scare your horse, and 
he could come well-nigh setting you on your head. 

The hogs were of all colors—white, black, yellow, 
spotted, big spots, little spots and speckled. There 
were two things they all had in common, however— 
long snouts and long legs. They were probably of 
rather primitive stock to start with, and nature had 
helped to lengthen snouts and legs since they had 
gone wild. Only those survived which had the long¬ 
est snouts to fight and dig with and the longest legs 
to run with. It was these which lived to propagate 
the species. They were usually lean and lanky, but 
when the acorn crop was good in the shinery they 
put on a little fat. I seldom ever found one, how¬ 
ever, that weighed over one hundred and fifty 
pounds. 

Wild hogs, as a rule, scattered out when looking 
for food, but when attacked, all within hearing dis¬ 
tance would bunch up. They would get the pigs in 


THE “22” RANCH 


81 


the center, and the old ones would keep to the out¬ 
side of the circle with their heads turned out. The 
old boars had long tusks, and could deal dreadful 
havoc in a fight. A panther or lobo could make an 
easy killing of a pig or half-grown shoat, but shied 
off from an old boar. If the hogs had a chance to 
gang up after the alarm was given, they were safe. 

After we got the wood in, Van Sanders and John 
Garrison left camp for a few days on a cow hunt. 
Before he left, Van told Will and me to go up in the 
shinery, kill some hogs, and render out some lard. 
We shot two fairly fat hogs about a mile and a half 
from camp, dragged them to camp by the saddle 
horn and skinned them. 

We had no kettles for scalding hogs in the con¬ 
ventional way, but we had three fairly good sub¬ 
stitutes. One method was to dig a hole in the ground, 
fill it with water, and heat the water by dropping hot 
stones in it. Water can be made to boil in a short time 
after the stones are heated. As the stones are dropped 
in the water, the heat passes from the stones to the 
water with great rapidity. Indians used this method 
of heating for cooking. We could get a good scald in 
this way. It was a good method to use when one 
wanted to cure the meat, as it preserved the hide. 

When we wanted fresh meat and did not want to 
take time to heat stones, we skinned the hogs. There 
were two ways of skinning. If there was a tree near¬ 
by large enough to hold a hog, we strung him up 
by the hind legs, and took the skin off in strips about 
two or three inches wide. If there were no trees con- 


82 


ROLLIE BURNS 


venient, we skinned the hog on the ground. We 
turned him on his back, began in the middle of his 
belly, and skinned the hide down both sides, like 
one would do a buffalo or a beef. 

We got about twenty pounds of lard from our two 
hogs besides the meat. We rendered the lard, a little 
at a time, in the Dutch ovens. When we finished, we 
thought we had done a big day’s work. The next 
day we rode the south line of our range to see if any 
cattle had crossed recently. When we got back late 
in the afternoon, we found that something had en¬ 
tered our camp and destroyed our supply of meat and 
lard. We started an investigation and found hog 
tracks all over the place. We followed them away 
from the camp towards the shinery and overtook a 
rangy sow and a bunch of shoats. We decided they 
were the culprits, pulled our 45’s, and had another 
hog-killing. We spent the rest of the evening skin¬ 
ning, and the next day rendering. 

During the winter we rode the south line of our 
range. To the west the line extended to the Caprock 
about fifteen miles distant. It crossed a ridge between 
the Salt Fork and Yellow House Creek. A short time 
after the hog-killing, Will Sanders and I were riding 
across this ridge one day and found the carcass of a 
cow which had been killed but a few hours. We got 
off our horses and started to look for evidence which 
would indicate how she was killed. We found she 
had been shot with arrows. One arrow was still stick¬ 
ing in the under side. The Indians had taken most of 
the meat, and had stripped and taken the intestines. 


THE “22” RANCH 


. 83 

Indians considered the intestines the best part of a 
cow or buffalo. They were like lobos and eagles in 
that respect. They would kill a cow; and before she 
was through kicking, they would rip out the intes¬ 
tines and start eating them raw. They claimed the 
juices in the intestines were good for them. Will and 
I figured that the Indians might still be lurking 
somewhere about, and they could see a long way on 
that ridge, so we didn’t lose any time in getting away 
from there. We called the place Indian Ridge, and 
it still goes by that name today. 


CHAPTER VIII 
A FRONTIER BALL 

The winter of 1881-1882 was a gay one for the 
cowboys of Crosby, Floyd, Motley, Dickens, Kent, 
Garza, Lynn and Lubbock Counties. We had two 
dances, one at Will Slaughter’s in January, and one 
at Dockum’s in March. The one at Dockum’s was 
scheduled to take place first, but had to be postponed 
about three months. 

We were all excited about the dances, and had been 
for weeks. Ever since the fall round-ups were over, 
practically all of our talk had been about the forth¬ 
coming dances. We started getting ready for Slaugh¬ 
ter’s dance a week before it began. I had brought 
three white shirts from home. They had been white 
before I left home, but hanging around in a dug- 
out for six months had changed their color. Will 
Sanders, John Garrison and I conceived the idea of 
washing these shirts and “putting on some dog” at 
the dance. We didn’t have any place to wash them 
but the creek, and the water there was of a reddish, 
muddy hue. We washed them all right, but when 
we got through the shirts were a streaked pink color. 

84 


A FRONTIER BALL 


85 


The next day Will Sanders came by L. A. Wil¬ 
son’s dugout over on Pole Canyon and found a 
smoothing iron and about four pounds of starch. 
Mrs. Wilson had left these articles at the dugout 
the previous fall when she and her husband returned 
to Jacksboro. (Wilson ranged with the Hensleys, and 
our outfit looked after his cattle during the winter). 
It had not occurred to us that we ought to starch or 
iron our shirts, but when Will saw that starch and 
smoothing iron, the idea struck him, and he came 
wagging them into camp, looking a little sheepish. 
The idea went over big with John and me, and we 
got busy at once. We filled one of the Dutch ovens 
two-thirds full of water and put in about two and 
one-half pounds of starch. We got it boiling and then 
baptized the shirts. Then we hung them out on 
bushes to dry. We didn’t wring them any, because 
we didn’t want to lose any of our precious starch. 
When they got dry, they seemed to be starched 
a-plenty. They were hard as boards and would stand 
alone. We were puzzled, then, as to how to get them 
ironed. One of the boys remembered seeing his 
mother sprinkle clothes before ironing; then we 
all remembered having seen that done at home. 
We sprinkled the shirts and they would still stand 
alone. We tried to put them on and failed at that. 
John suggested, maybe, we had used too much starch. 
So we made up another batch, this time putting in 
about half as much starch. When it got to boiling, 
we stuck the shirts in. They collapsed slowly like a 
hard lump of sugar melting at the bottom. When 


86 


ROLLIE BURNS 


they dried, they would still stand alone. We didn’t 
realize that all the starch of the first dipping was still 
in the shirts. We took the shirts to the creek and let 
them soak while we got some chuck. We had been 
so busy that we had let half the afternoon slip by 
without realizing it was time to eat. After chuck, we 
got ready to iron, but when we brought our shirts 
out they were as limber as a rawhide string that had 
been left in the water overnight. Will suggested that 
we give them another starching, but we found we had 
used all the starch. Then we proceeded with the iron¬ 
ing. The iron had rust on it, and when we finished, 
our shirts were a yellowish pink with brown spots 
from the iron all over them. We looked them over 
and decided it was a failure. We had spent the better 
part of two days and all Mrs. Wilson’s starch and 
made a bad job of it. I suppose that if the starch and 
shirts had held out we would have stayed at it sev¬ 
eral days. As it was, we had to wear old cow-punchin’ 
togs to the dance. We washed them out in the creek, 
but didn’t attempt the ironing business on them. 

The morning before the dance was to start we 
spent trying to shave. I had brought an old razor 
with me, but none of us had tried to use it since I 
arrived six months before. Our beards were full of 
grit and none of us were very good at sharpening a 
razor. We used the stirrup leather of a saddle for a 
strop. We would pull at our whiskers awhile and 
strop awhile. We didn’t have a looking glass, so we 
had to shave each other. Will and I got our beards 
off after a fashion, but when John saw how much 


A FRONTIER BALL 


87 


blood we were bringing, he decided he would go to 
the dance with his beard intact. 

We started at noon because it was twelve miles, 
and we wanted to arrive early. Others were already 
arriving when we got there. The women were com¬ 
ing in buckboards and hacks, and the men on horse¬ 
back. We hobbled our horses out, and got ready for 
supper. 

Will Slaughter had gotten ready for us in big 
style. He had barbecued a beef, had boiled a bunch 
of hams (of wild hogs), had roasted several turkeys, 
had several quarters of venison ready to cut into 
steaks, and antelope meat ready to be made into stew 
with “sinkers” (dumplings). Mrs. Slaughter had 
made several gallons of jelly and preserves from wild 
plums during the previous summer. She had cooked 
a tub full of doughnuts, stacks of fried apple pies, 
and some cakes—the first I had seen since I left 
home. The coffee pot was kept steaming until we 
left three days later. 

There were nine women present, Mrs. Will 
Slaughter, Mrs. Sam Gholson and her two daughters 
from the extreme southeast corner of Lubbock 
County, Mrs. Coon Cooper from Garza County, two 
daughters of Joe Browning from Dickens County 
(one of them later married Jim McCommis), Miss 
Scarborough from Snyder, and Miss Rodie De 
Graffenried from Dickens County. There were so 
many cowboys they all couldn’t get in the house at 
the same time; there were thirty or more. About 
dark George Edwards got out his old fiddle and 


88 


ROLLIE BURNS 


started tuning up. He thumped, twisted, listened, 
strummed, and sawed for a half hour. I couldn’t 
see that he was making much headway, but he finally 
got it fixed to suit him and drew the bow vigorously 
across the strings a few times by way of warming up. 
Then Bill Petty, a six-footer with a pair of leather 
lungs from the Spur range on Red Mud, bellowed, 
“Get yer partners fer the first dance.” 

Most of the boys were kinda shy at first. They 
had not been around women for so long that they 
were a little afraid of them. Enough of the more 
brazen ones got up sufficient courage to ask partners 
for the first dance. Two rooms had been cleared for 
dancing. They were so small that only one set could 
dance in each room at a time. The fiddler sat in the 
door between the two rooms. 

When four couples had gotten out on the floor, 
George Edwards struck up a tune and started keep¬ 
ing time energetically with his bootheel. Bill roared: 

“Two little sisters form a ring, 

Don’t forget to break and swing, 

Partner with your right hand, 

Corner with your left, 

Partner with your right, 

Right and wrong all night long, 

Meet your partner and promenade home. 

“Three little sisters form a ring, 

Don’t forget to break and swing,” etc. 

George rested a moment and struck up another 
tune. Bill shouted to the gents to get partners for 


A FRONTIER BALL 


89 


the next dance. The boys were not so shy this time. 
Bill began: 

“Hark ye partners, 

Rights the same, 

Balance you all, 

First lady to the right; 

Swing the man who stole the sheep, 

Now the one that hauled it home, 

Now the one that ate the meat, 

Now the one that gnawed the bones. 

“First gent, swing yer opposite partner, 

Then yer turtle dove. 

Again yer opposite partner, 

And now yer own true love. 

First couple to the right, 

Cage the bird, three hands round. 

Birdie hop out and crane hop in, 

Three hands around, and go it again. 

“All men left; back to the partner, 

And grand right and left; 

Come to yer partner once and a half, 

Yeller hammer right and jaybird left, 

Meet yer partner and all chaw hay, 

You know where and I don’t care, 

Seat yer partner in the old arm chair.” 

Three nights and two days—quadrilles, waltzes, 
schottisches, and polkas. I wondered how the women 
stood it. With the men it was different. There were 
three times as many of them as women; consequently 
they got to rest about two-thirds of the time. When 


90 


ROLLIE BURNS 


one of the boys got tired and sleepy, he could go out 
to the half dugout used for a bunk house and get a 
nap, but the women were not given much chance to 
rest. However, they danced with minimum exer¬ 
tion. The men swung them so lustily that little effort 
was necessary on their part. Before daybreak of the 
third morning, however, their feet got tired and 
sore. 

A considerable amount of whiskey was in evidence, 
among the men especially. None got drunk, but some 
of them stayed pretty well keyed up. 

On the morning following the third night of danc¬ 
ing we caught our horses and started back to camp, 
a tired bunch. When we got there it was not to bed 
and to sleep, but to work until dark. We had to ride 
the line and make up for the three days we were 
away. It was long after dark when we hit our wolf 
hides. We were a week getting over the effects of the 
dance, and I expect the women were longer than 
that. Before long, however, we were getting excited 
about the Dockum dance. 

During the previous fall ( 1881 ), Mr. Dockum 
hauled lumber from Fort Worth and started build¬ 
ing his storehouse, twenty by thirty feet. We pre¬ 
vailed on him to give us a Christmas tree and a 
dance. He agreed to do so, provided we would guar¬ 
antee to buy all his Christmas goods, and not leave 
any on his hands unsold. Van and Will Sanders, Bill 
and Tom Petty, Dick Crutchfield, John Garrison, 
Jack Alley, several others and I made the guaran¬ 
tee. News of the dance spread counties around. When 


A FRONTIER BALL 


91 


Christmas came, neither all the lumber for the house 
nor the Christmas goods had arrived on account of 
bad weather delaying the freighters. About the first 
week in March, Dockum sent us word that the lum¬ 
ber and goods had arrived. Several of us who had 
guaranteed to take the Christmas wares got together 
and set a date for the Christmas tree. We put it two 
weeks off so the news would have time to get around. 
The day before the occasion, several of us went to 
the brakes over by the Caprock and brought in a big 
cedar for the Christmas tree. We put it up in the 
store and spent next day decorating it. 

About the same crowd came to it that afternoon 
that had been at Slaughter’s dance. The tree was as 
big a success as if it had taken place on scheduled 
time. Everyone was in a festive mood. I suppose this 
was the first community Christmas tree ever held 
west of Fort Griffin. The next year the Matadors had 
a delayed tree. It also took place in March, because 
the things that had been ordered for it were nearly 
three months late getting in. 

After the Christmas tree exercises were over, we 
started to dance. George Edwards did the fiddling 
again and Bill Petty the calling. This dance was a 
one-night affair, and nobody lost any time. While 
the boys were waiting turns in the sets, they hustled 
the coffee pot and smoked cigarettes, occasionally 
taking a Christmas “nip” from a bottle of Four 
Roses. 

A few days before the dance John Garrison burned 
a large hole in one of his boots while trying to dry it 


92 


ROLLIE BURNS 


over the camp fire. John was in a bad frame of mind 
while we were making preparations. I saw he was 
dying with envy, so I had him try on my boots. They 
fitted him to a gnat’s heel. I told him we would take 
it turn about; I would dance a set while he stayed 
outside the house, then I would go outside and let 
him wear my boots while he danced a set. We man¬ 
aged the thing so that no one suspected the exchange 
of footgear. That was one dance that my boots took 
part in nearly every set. 

The dance broke up at sun-up, and we caught our 
horses and headed for our home ranges. 


CHAPTER IX 


“REPING” FOR THE “22” OUTFIT 

Winter work with the “22” outfit was strenuous, 
but not so much so as it had been with Mr. X’s outfit 
in Clay County. We got up before daylight, made a 
fire in the fireplace, and three of us cooked break¬ 
fast while the other wrangled the horses. One of us 
made sourdough biscuits, another cooked the meat 
and made gravy, and the third made coffee and hus¬ 
tled the fire. While we were waiting for the bread 
to cook, we sat around on our heels and smoked 
cigarettes. Unless the horses had gotten too far away, 
the one on wrangle usually got in by the time the 
biscuits were done. We used our pocket knives for 
eating; we would take a biscuit, put a piece of meat 
on it, and hold it in our hands while we ate it. 
When we wanted gravy, we sopped in the skillet. We 
had some tin plates, but didn’t use them in order to 
save dish washing. We had tin cups for coffee; and 
the cups and skillet were the only things we had to 
wash. 

We had our horses saddled and were ready to start 
by daylight. Our horses were pretty well broke, but 
93 


94 


ROLLIE BURNS 


occasionally one would cut loose and buck awhile 
when we mounted on a cold morning. We rode the 
south line of our range each day, two of us going 
east and two going west. If we found fresh tracks 
crossing the trail, we took after them until we over¬ 
took the cattle and drove them back. We might find 
them within one mile or maybe ten. When we got 
that bunch back, we went on up the line trail look¬ 
ing for others. Some days we would get back to 
camp by the middle of the afternoon, and other days 
it would be after dark. 

We seldom ever had anything to eat from the 
time we left until we got back. We were always as 
hungry as wolves when we got in. As soon as we 
could, we cooked some chuck, ft consisted of bis¬ 
cuits, meat, gravy and coffee. The Hensleys brought 
our provisions from Jacksboro twice a year. About the 
only articles they ever furnished were flour, salt and 
coffee. We had to hustle our own meat, and did with¬ 
out sweetstuffs. We got pretty tired of just having 
biscuits, meat and gravy. One day one of the boys 
was at Dockum’s and decided to buy some rice, on his 
own hook. None of us knew anything about cooking 
rice. We put a half gallon in a Dutch oven and 
started to boil it. It started swelling up and filled the 
oven. We put part of it in the other oven, and pretty 
soon had both ovens full. We put some in a small 
bucket and still there was not enough room. Then 
we piled some out on the ground. We had to eat all 
the rice in our bread oven before we could cook any 
more biscuits. We had rice for three days and were 


C REPING” FOR THE “22” OUTFIT 


95 


pretty well caught up on that cereal by the time 
we finished the batch. 

In spite of our efforts, cattle drifted badly during 
the winter of 1881-1882. When spring came, a good 
many of the “22” cattle had gotten away from us and 
had drifted far to the south. In April, 1882, I was 
sent along with John Slaughter’s wagon to work the 
C. C. Slaughter range which, at that time, began a 
few miles west of Colorado City and reached to the 
head of the Colorado River. “Lum” (C. C.) Slaugh¬ 
ter had started out in Palo Pinto County during the 
early 50’s. He had ridden after cattle bareback when 
he was too poor to own a saddle j he had freighted 
with an ox team from Jefferson; and he had trailed 
cattle from the Rio Grande to Kansas. In 1879 he 
realized that the day of free grass was over in Palo 
Pinto County, and moved his herds to Howard, Mar¬ 
tin, Dawson and Borden Counties. He purchased 
some land there and leased a lot more—nearly a mil¬ 
lion acres in all. Gus (C. A.) O’Keefe was his manager. 

O’Keefe knew how to manage men, and he had 
a good bunch to manage. To see him giving direc¬ 
tions was inspiring. I think he was the first man I 
ever saw that stirred my ambition. He made me want 
to be a ranch manager and handle a crowd of punch¬ 
ers. Slaughter’s outfit had ridden a close line on the 
south side of the range during the winter, and had 
kept the cattle of all brands to the north, as well as 
their own, from drifting south of the Texas and 
Pacific Railroad. 

The round-up began on the head of Colorado 


96 


ROLLIE BURNS 


River and worked down the river. There were about 
twelve wagons along with ten to twelve hands to 
the wagon. O’Keefe would designate a place for 
a round-up and send the various outfits in different 
directions from the river to gather the cattle and 
concentrate them at the round-up grounds. 

One day after a heavy rain our outfit was laying 
up, and John Gardner, John Bell, another puncher, 
and I had been doing some exploring on our own 
hook. We were returning to the wagon when we 
jumped a panther. We took after him, and John 
Gardner and I shot at him a few times. After a 
half mile or so the panther bayed behind a bush. 
Someone suggested that we rope the cat and take him 
to camp alive. The plan sounded interesting, but I 
don’t think any one was particularly caring about 
being the first one to lay his rope on the panther. We 
flipped a coin to determine the order of roping. John 
Gardner made the first run and put his lariat over 
the cat’s neck, but the panther flipped the loop off 
with his paw. I made the second run and missed him 
on purpose. John Bell made a try and the cat again 
flipped the rope off. The fourth man didn’t take 
part. Gardner came next and missed. Again it was my 
turn. I decided to try to put my rope on the crea¬ 
ture this time, let happen what might. I ran within 
fifteen feet of the cat and threw my loop. Then I 
felt the rope grow taut. There I was with one end of 
my rope around the saddle horn and the other end 
around a live panther. My horse was going at full 
speed, and the other boys said the panther was jerked 


‘REPING” FOR THE “22” OUTFIT 


97 


through the air for fifteen feet when my horse took 
up the slack. I drug the panther for a couple of hun¬ 
dred yards, and then stopped to see how he was com¬ 
ing. He was so groggy he was hardly able to stand. 
One of the shots we had taken at him had nipped 
off two or three toes on one foot. I supposed that was 
the reason he made the stand behind the bush. One 
of the boys threw another lariat on him and we held 
him between our horses so he couldn’t do anything. 
We then took the horn strings off our saddles and 
tied his jaws and feet. We had to blindfold a horse 
before we could get him up to the panther. Then we 
put the panther across the saddle and tied him hard 
and fast. When we got to camp and unloaded the cat, 
the cook mounted the wagon and said, “Men, if you 
don’t kill that varmint, I am quitting this outfit here 
and now!” 

We killed the panther. 

When the Lum Slaughter round-ups were over, 
we brought the “22” strays back with the John 
Slaughter strays. When we got to John Slaughter’s 
place, his men helped cut the “22” strays and start 
them back to our range. Then I drifted them the rest 
of the way by myself. It was the last week in July 
when I arrived. 

In the fall of 1882 the Hensley Brothers sent me 
to Bill McDonald’s ranch at Big Salt Lake in New 
Mexico to purchase some bulls. They had heard that 
McDonald had some good ones to sell. It was one 
hundred and twenty miles out to Big Salt Lake. I got 
an early start and reached Williams sheep ranch by 


98 


ROLLIE BURNS 


late noon. Mr. Williams was at home, so I stopped 
and ate dinner with him. I found he had come there 
in 1877 and acquired three sections of land. There 
was already a sheep corral at the spring before he 
located there. It had been built a year or two before 
by some “floater” passing through. In the summer 
of 1880, Williams had to go away from the ranch 
for several days. It was late at night when he re¬ 
turned. He noticed that the herder was missing, and 
that the sheep were not in the corral. Early next 
morning he started out to look for the herder and 
found him dead about a mile and a half from the 
house. 

Some distance farther, Williams found the sheep. 
The herder’s dog was still with them. The dog had 
kept the sheep together and guarded them for two 
days and nights. Williams buried the herder near 
the house. Afterwards a treasure legend got started 
in regard to the herder, his strange death, and burial, 
and people have been going to the old Williams 
ranch and digging for buried treasure ever since. 

I spent that night at Singer’s store. Next morning 
I purchased a supply of sardines, salmon, cheese, and 
crackers, and headed west. About three miles beyond 
Singer’s store I noticed a man’s footprints in the 
trail. The tracks were going the same way I was. 
I trailed those footprints all day. Late in the after¬ 
noon I reached Yellow House, a peculiar formation 
resembling a house from a distance; Yellow House 
Canyon took its name from this formation. At Yel¬ 
low House the trail forked, one fork leading north- 


‘REPING” FOR THE “22” OUTFIT 


99 


west and the other, north. The tracks went north and 
so did I. About two miles up this fork I met the man 
coming back whose tracks I had been following alJ 
day. He hailed me and asked where I was headed 
for. I told him McDonald’s ranch, and he said he 
was going there too, but that we were on the wrong 
road. The sun was almost down when we got back 
to Yellow House. I proposed that we camp for the 
night and he agreed. 

I unsaddled my horse and staked him close to 
my saddle. I noticed the stranger had only a water 
bottle and a slicker. I asked him to eat with me, and 
he did not need any urging, for he had not eaten any¬ 
thing since the evening before. When we bedded 
down I put my head on my saddle and turned my 
face toward the stranger. Soon I got to thinking, 
“Suppose this fellow is an outlaw and tries to take 
my horse and leave me afoot.” 

The more I thought the more convinced I was that 
he was a bad man. I lay all night watching him. I 
had my .45 in my hand, and if he had made a move 
toward me or my horse, I would have shot him. But 
he did not so much as turn over all night. Next 
morning we ate what was left of my cheese and 
crackers and started on. We stayed together for 
awhile, but did not have much to say to each other. 
I was thinking that he had escaped from some peni¬ 
tentiary, and he probably thought I was some horse 
rustler or outlaw. After an hour or two I rode on 
ahead, and got to McDonald’s camp about 3 o’clock. 
About sun-down the stranger came in. After supper 


100 


ROLLIE BURNS 


he and I got to talking. I learned that he had bossed 
a sheep herd from New Mexico to Colorado City 
to be sheared, and was on his way back to New Mexi¬ 
co after another herd. At that time the sheepmen 
of New Mexico were driving thousands of sheep to 
Colorado City and Big Spring to be sheared. In this 
way the sheep transported their own wool to the 
railroad shipping points as well as getting six months 
of free grazing while going and coming. Then the 
sheep would be slowly drifted back to their ranges in 
New Mexico by the herders. 

Big Salt Lake was a treacherous place for sheep. 
As I approached that afternoon, I could see white 
spots all over the lake. I could not figure out what 
they were for awhile, but when I got to the edge, 1 
saw they were the bodies of sheep sticking out of the 
water. The water was strong alkali, and the lake was 
boggy. Sheep were always bogging and drowning. 

There were some fresh water springs on the north 
end of the lake where McDonald’s camp was lo¬ 
cated. Doak Good moved his cattle to this lake the 
following winter, and a year or two later Jim New¬ 
man brought in his cattle. A short time after New¬ 
man arrived, he and Good got crossways, and finally 
had a shooting scrape at a round-up. Later, Good 
moved his cattle farther on, and Newman sold to the 
D Z outfit owned by Curtis and Lazarus. 

I looked at McDonald’s bulls, but did not buy any. 
The second morning after my arrival I started back. 
When I reached Silver Lake I saw five or six buffa¬ 
loes at a distance. As the wind and some small sand 


‘REPING” FOR THE “22” OUTFIT 


101 


hills were in my favor, I decided to take a shot at 
them. I dismounted and dropped the long bridle 
reins. Cowboys always used long reins, and did not 
tie the ends together. When a horse fell, or when a 
rider was thrown from a horse, the reins would fall 
to the ground, and the horse would step on the reins 
and the rider would have a chance to catch the horse. 

When I thought I was near enough to the buffaloes 
I fired. They started in my direction on a run. I stood 
up and began firing for the purpose of scaring them. 
They ran past me and within fifty yards of my horse. 
This scared him, and he started down the road. The 
long reins prevented his making much speed, but he 
had unusual intelligence; he held his head on one 
side so he would not step on the reins. I followed 
him about three miles and was not making much 
headway in overtaking him. Then I remembered that 
the trail where we were made a big bend; so I took 
a short cut and managed to head him off. 

I was so mad when I mounted that I took my six- 
shooter and jabbed him on the head between the 
ears. About the second jab, he fell as if he had been 
“creased.” He fell on my leg, and got up before I 
did, and started down the road again. This time I 
had to overtake him with a lame leg. It was a pretty 
good lesson to me. It had not occurred to me that 
most all horses are afraid of buffaloes. That night I 
camped at Yellow House, the second night at Sin¬ 
ger’s store, and the third night I was back at the 
“22” camp. 

During the summer of 1882 the outfit moved back 


102 


ROLLIE BURNS 


to the camp at the head of McDonald. When the 
fall work was over we went back to the camp on 
Salt Fork on the south line of our range. Steve Mar- 
timer, the man who had run into our trail camp in 
Keechi Valley in 1873 when the Indians killed 
Walker and his son, worked with us that winter. 

Polecats were bad around the camp. They would 
come into the dugout at night when we were asleep. 
When we would hear the polecats coming, we would 
cover our heads. They would walk over us, our beds, 
and everything else in sight. They seemed to like 
scraps of fried meat or anything that had grease on it. 
We could not shoot them in camp for we would have 
had to leave ourselves then. 

One night while we were all asleep a cat bit Steve 
between the eyes. Steve let out a yell that could 
have been heard a mile away. We had to pull the 
cat loose. It was a little striped cat, the kind that is 
said to cause hydrophobia. Steve began to cry and 
said he would go mad. All of us were afraid he would 
start having fits. We kept a poultice of soda on the 
wound for several days, and Steve began to calm 
down. I told him he was scared worse than when the 
Indians were after him in Keechi Valley. He said the 
Indians gave him a chance to run and the polecats 
didn’t. He soon went back to Jacksboro, saying he 
would not live in a country where the polecats ran 
over him at night in droves. 

We tried luring them away from the dugout by 
putting fresh meat for them out in front, but that 
didn’t work. Then we got some dogs and tied them 


‘REPING” FOR THE “22” OUTFIT 


103 


in front of the door, but the cats got into the dugout, 
anyway. Finally we made it our business to hunt 
polecats about sundown$ that is about the time they 
leave their dens. We killed a great number, and by 
spring had them about killed out around the camp. 

Coyotes were numerous in our vicinity that win¬ 
ter. The sandy bed of the river was a quarter of a 
mile wide in front of our camp. The water sunk below 
the surface except after a heavy rain. We often saw 
coyotes playing up and down the river bed. After we 
got our dogs, they kept the coyotes chased off for 
awhile, but finally got to where they would play with 
them. The coyotes were smart. They would romp 
with the dogs until the dogs started toward the camp, 
and then they would stop. They consistently stayed 
out of the range of our Winchester rifles. 

In March, 1883, Will Slaughter offered me thirty- 
five dollars a month to work for him. That was top 
wages in those days. Mr. Slaughter told me that I 
was an extra good hand and knew the game, and if I 
was offered more money than he was giving me, to 
accept without consulting him. The Hensley Broth¬ 
ers never acquired any land, and in 1885 sold the 
“22” cattle to Harrell, Franklin and Henson. These 
men ran the outfit for a short time and then sold 
the cattle off. Their range was being acquired and 
fenced by the Spurs. 

I had worked for Slaughter only one month when 
Mr. German B. Stout of Kentucky offered me fifty 
dollars a month. Mr. Stout was a fine man, but a ten¬ 
derfoot. He had located five hundred cattle on Yel- 


104 


ROLLIE BURNS 


low House Creek in Garza County, just east of the 
Curry Combs, and his brand was “202”. 

As soon as I started working for Mr. Stout, I was 
sent to represent the “202 , s” at the round-ups on the 
Curry Comb range. A few days later we were hold¬ 
ing a round-up about six miles north of the present 
town of Post. A herd of buffaloes stampeded some¬ 
where to the west of us and came thundering down 
from the Plains, headed straight for our round-up. 
Everything was in confusion. The cattle stampeded, 
and all sixty of the cowboys quit the cattle and took 
after the buffaloes. The boys who had pistols started 
shooting j the others took their lariats and tried rop¬ 
ing. I lost out early when my horse stepped in a hole 
and fell just as I was coming alongside a big bull. 
The others chased the herd several miles. When they 
came straggling back, practically every one had a 
big yarn to tell about how he had shot or roped a 
buffalo. An actual count, however, disclosed that only 
twelve buffaloes had been killed. We had buffalo 
meat for several days. 

A few days after this, Comanche Indians raided 
the Llano (Curry Comb) Ranch and drove off 
twenty horses. Mr. Galbraith, the manager, tracked 
the Indians to Fort Sill and found the horses in a 
Comanche camp. Galbraith claimed the horses. The 
Indians were quite willing to turn the horses over 
to him, but said that Galbraith would have to pay ten 
dollars a head to get them out of the Indian country. 
Galbraith argued with them, but to no avail. He 
knew better than to start without satisfying the In- 


E REPING” FOR THE “22” OUTFIT 


105 


diansj so he paid them two hundred dollars, and 
the Indians helped him get the horses across Red 
River. 


CHAPTER X 
THE LLANO RANCH 

While I was staying at the winter camp on the 
Salt Fork and riding the “22’s” south line during the 
winters of 1881-1882 and 1882-1883, I occasionally 
met Mr. Ben Galbraith, manager of the Llano Cat¬ 
tle Company. Our south line was the Llano’s north 
line. Our cattle would sometimes become mixed dur¬ 
ing a bad spell of weather, and the Llano outfit 
would help us separate them. In this way I got to 
know Mr. Galbraith quite well, and our friendship 
eventually led to my promotion. 

In 1875 Colonel W. C. Young of Fort Worth had 
purchased three hundred stock cattle and put Ben 
Galbraith, a young Irishman from Illinois, in charge. 
They kept the cattle in Tarrant County for a year, 
then moved them to Shackelford County. At the time 
of the move, Young made Galbraith an equal part¬ 
ner and they started the Y G brand. Three years 
later (1879) they moved the herd to Garza County, 
and made a dugout camp on Yellow House Creek 
about ten miles north of where Post was later located. 
The next year they organized the Llano Cattle Corn- 
106 


THE LLANO RANCH 


107 


pany with a capital of $400,000. W. C. Young was 
president and Ben Galbraith manager. Sam S. Ghol- 
son turned in 2,500 cattle and received $50,000 in 
stock. E. T. Ambler of Fort Worth and T. J. Lycon 
of Dallas were heavy stockholders. S. A. Johnson, 
one of the cowboys, and Ed Ryan, red-headed book¬ 
keeper on the ranch, had a few shares each. There 
were other stockholders whose names I have forgot¬ 
ten. Jasper Hays surveyed the lands, thumping along 
on his wooden leg. Aside from the three hundred 
original cattle, the Llanos never bought any cattle 
except the 2,500 head Gholson put in. By 1883 the 
herd numbered between 8,000 and 10,000. At the 
time of its organization the Llano Company dropped 
the Y. G. brand and started the Curry Comb, 

The Company also began buying and leasing land 
and eventually acquired a tract twelve by sixteen 
miles. 

The Llano range was watered by natural water¬ 
courses. Yellow House Creek ran through the north¬ 
east corner. Several creeks headed at the foot of the 
Caprock and ran into Yellow House. These creeks 
had springs at their sources. 

About the last of June, 1883, Mr. Galbraith came 
to me and said he was going to leave the ranch for 
at least a year. His health was failing, and he was 
having trouble. In fact, if the threats meant anything, 
his life was in danger. He said he was going to Fort 
Worth in a few days and intended recommending me 
to the officials of the company as his successor. I 
could hardly believe my ears—here was my one am- 


108 


ROLLIE BURNS 


bition about to be realized. In a few days a letter 
came from Colonel Young directing me to take 
charge of the ranch on August 1. Mr. Galbraith 
never returned; he went to his old home in Illinois 
and died shortly. His interest in the Llano Cattle 
Company was inherited by his brother, Dave. 

Sam Gholson had been after me for sometime to 
go with him on a hunt for some horses that had been 
running with mustangs since 1880. In June of 1880 
a friend of Gholson’s from Coleman County had 
been taking sixty cow ponies to New Mexico to sell. 
About where Levelland is now located, the horses 
had stampeded and got mixed with mustangs. The 
driver had been unable to round them up, and the 
horses had been running wild ever since. I had told 
Gholson that I thought it would be a wild-goose 
chase, but after I got Colonel Young’s letter appoint¬ 
ing me as manager of the Llano Ranch, I decided to 
take the month of July off and go with Gholson. 

We took two horses each, some chuck and a pair 
of fieldglasses, and spent two days riding over the 
western part of Lubbock County and the eastern part 
of Hockley County. Grass was good and the lakes 
were full of water. We saw lots of mustangs. They 
were in bands numbering from twenty to fifty, and 
each band was led by a stallion. When we ran short 
of chuck we headed for Estacado. We were looking 
pretty seedy when we got to Charles Holmes’ store, 
and most every man and boy in the village came in 
to look us over. Gholson described the horses we were 
looking for and asked if anyone had seen such a 


THE LLANO RANCH 


109 


bunch. Lint Hunt said he had watched a bunch of 
mustangs at a lake ten miles west of Estacado a few 
days before, and he thought some of them were 
branded. 

We went out to the lake he told us about and 
camped. The next morning we scouted around sev¬ 
eral hours and found the herd. With the aid of the 
fieldglasses we discovered that some of the horses 
were branded. Gholson was for capturing them, and 
I told him I had as soon chase this bunch as any other 
on the Plains. 

We hobbled our extra horses near the lake and 
started the long, continuous run which was eventually 
to tire the mustangs out. I took the first shift while 
Gholson went to our camp by the lake and ate supper. 
The horses ran about five miles in one direction, but 
finally turned back to our camp. After this first run 
they never went over three miles from our camp; 
this was their range. I kept close enough to keep 
them at full speed. Sometimes I let my horse run as 
hard as he could, and at other times I reined him 
down to a lope. After the first few rounds the horses 
began to run in something like a circle. This was a 
great help to Gholson and me, for we would keep 
the inside of the circle and save a lot of distance. 
Gholson relieved me after about three hours, and 
by this time the mustangs were making a complete 
circle. We were having moonlight nights, so we had 
no trouble keeping up the chase at night. By the 
morning of the third day we had the horses so leg- 
weary we could drive them where we wished. 


ROLLIE BURNS 


110 

The leader of this band was a blood-bay stallion, 
untouched by human hand. He was game to the 
last, always taking the lead. When the herd began 
to show the effects of the long race, and several 
horses began to lag behind, he would leave his place 
in front and go back urging the lagging ones to great¬ 
er speed. When milder tactics failed, he would turn 
on them, kicking and biting. When we started the 
herd the way we wanted to go, the leader would drop 
back and show fight. Sometimes he would run very 
close to us, arching his neck and showing his teeth. 
We developed a profound admiration for this stal¬ 
lion, but we concluded that the herd would never be 
manageable as long as he was in it, and the only way 
to get him out of it was to shoot him. About the hard¬ 
est job I ever did was to kill this wonderful piece of 
horseflesh. We then had no trouble getting the rest of 
the mustangs to the Llano Corrals. We were dead 
tired when we got in; so we put them in the pens for 
the night. 

The next morning we roped and hog-tied every 
horse in the herd. There were thirty-six in all; twelve 
of them had been branded. We found a pile of old 
horse shoes at the corrals; we placed a shoe on a 
horse’s foreleg just above the pastern joint, and 
mashed the heels of the shoe together. This allowed 
the shoe to drop over the ankle and act as a clog to 
prevent the horse from running. We kept the mus¬ 
tangs under herd for several weeks, and then traded 
them to a professional horse dealer who shipped 
them to Louisiana to sell to cotton farmers. I have 


THE LLANO RANCH 


111 


often wondered how those mustangs acted in the 
cotton patches of easy-going Louisiana. However, I 
have heard that shipping a horse several hundred 
miles on the railroad often takes the cussedness out 
of the wildest outlaws. 

During the 80’s there were a few men, called 
mustangers, who made their living by walking or 
running down mustangs. If the mustangers rode 
horses, they usually ran the mustangs down, and that 
was much quicker. If the mustangers footed it, they 
walked the horses down. That took from a week to 
ten days. Two men could take time about and keep 
continually on the move, never giving them a chance 
to eat. They always started the marathon just before 
the full of the moon, so as to have sufficient light at 
nights. This method was slower than running, but it 
caused the mustangs to be more gentle and easier to 
control. The mustangers would work with the horses 
a few weeks until they could handle them fairly 
well, and then sell or trade them to some horse deal¬ 
er. Two of the Hunt boys of Estacado, L. D. and 
Roll, tamed several bunches of wild horses in this 
way. 

When I took charge of the Llano Ranch on Aug¬ 
ust 1, 1883, the outfit had just got installed in the 
new headquarters. A two-story frame house was just 
being finished at the foot of the Caprock about three 
miles southwest of where Post was later located. 
Nearby were the new plank corrals, high and solid. 

Along with Galbraith’s job I had to take over his 
troubles. A minor but an irritating one was friction 


112 


ROLLIE BURNS 


with the red-headed bookkeeper. No matter what I 
did, it was not to his liking. If I gave an order for 
a load of chuck, he would ride fifteen miles looking 
for me to ask if I did not order too much of some 
article, or if I could not get along without some¬ 
thing else. He thought because he owned a few shares 
of stock that he was a part of the company, and I 
could not fire him. I put up with him three months, 
and then made him leave the ranch. 

The fencing was not yet finished. The south and 
east lines were up and the men were working on the 
north line. John W. Woody had the contract to fence 
the entire ranch. The posts and stays were procured 
from the cedar brakes west and south of Post. 
Posts were hard to get, for the brakes were so rough 
one could not get to the timber with a wagon. The 
posts had to be snaked out with mules to where they 
could be loaded on a Wagon. Galbraith had helped to 
get out the posts for the new corrals during the 
spring and summer of 1883, and when he quit he had 
huge callouses on his shoulders and hands. 

Woody placed the posts every forty feet with three 
stays to each panel. There were four wires tightly 
stretched. The ranch was originally fenced with 
barbed wire. The barbs were long with four points 
and were close together. After the fence cutters 
started getting in their work, the barbed wire was 
partly replaced by ribbon wire; it had one barb about 
every five inches, and was so heavy it could not be 
cut with a pair of common pliers. The barb was not 
twisted around the wire, but was a claw jutting out 


THE LLANO RANCH 


113 


from the ribbon. I never knew the exact cost of the 
Llano fence, for I had nothing to do with its con¬ 
struction except to inspect the north and west lines 
for the company after Woody had completed them. 

If I didn’t have anything to do with the fence’s 
construction, I had a-plenty to do with its repair 5 
for it was scarcely finished when the fence-cutters 
got busy again. Soon after I took charge of the out¬ 
fit I began to get threatening anonymous letters from 
the free-rangers. They said they had always been 
my friends, but as I had taken Galbraith’s place, I 
must leave the ranch or take the consequences. I knew 
pretty well whom the letters were from. I paid no 
attention to the threats and sent the free-rangers 
word that I would look after the interest of the 
Llanos as long as I was able to ride a horse. 

I placed two men at riding fence (line-riding), 
and in a few days they came in and quit. They said 
they would not work at a job where they were shot 
at by parties from concealed places. They each had 
been shot at several times at long range with Win¬ 
chesters. I put two more hands riding fence, and the 
next day they came in and quit for the same rea¬ 
son. Then I wrote Colonel Young a long letter ex¬ 
plaining the situation. Before I could hear from 
Young the free-rangers did another job of fence¬ 
cutting on the north. For a mile they cut the wire on 
each side of the posts so that the wire could not be 
used again. Then they drove several thousand head 
of cattle through the gap into the pasture. 


114 


ROLLIE BURNS 


A few days later I received the following letter 
from Colonel Young: 

“I will have a man there next week to assist you in riding 
the lines. Fix him up in good shape and ask no questions. Do 
the best you can in this matter, and conduct the business in as 
honorable and gentlemanly a way as possible.” 

When the man arrived I remembered having seen 

him before. His name was Bill G-, and he had 

been a peace officer at Fort Griffin during the time 
when that town was the toughest place in the State. 
He had two or three notches on his gun when he left 
Fort Griffin in 1881. Then he went to Sweetwater, 
where he added two more notches. Soon after he left 
the Llano outfit he went back to Sweetwater, where 
he was killed by another “tough one”. 

A few days later Young sent three other gunmen 

to assist Bill G-. I had never seen them before, 

but I found out later they all had “good records” 
and “plenty of notches”. The company was to fur¬ 
nish them with camp equipment and chuck, pay them 
each a hundred dollars a month, and a bonus if 
they killed a man in the act of cutting the fence. I 
followed instructions by fixing them up a camp on 
the north line and “asking no questions”. I saw very 
little of them the several months they were there. 

The fence-cutting did not stop. In spite of the 
gunmen, stretches of fence were repeatedly riddled 
and outside cattle driven in. Cutting fence was not 
the only damage the free-rangers were doing. They 
were shooting and killing hundreds of Curry Com! 
cattle. There were two reasons for this: first to in* 




THE LLANO RANCH 


115 


timidate us, and second, to rid the range of cattle 
which were eating the precious grass they coveted. 
We spent most of the winter rounding up their cat¬ 
tle and putting them outside, and repairing fence. I 
decided to put the cattle out of the pasture on the 
opposite side from their owner’s ranges. That caused 
the free-rangers a lot of trouble. 

Early in the spring of 1884 the Llano gunmen 
caught two fence-cutters in the act. They took a few 
long-range shots at them, but the fence-cutters man¬ 
aged to get away. The affair must have thrown a scare 
into the free-rangers, for a short time later several 
of them came to me and said that if I would disar 
the line-riders, there would be no more fences cut. 
I told them I would not disarm the men, but assured 
them they would not be molested if they left the 
fence alone. This ended the fence-cutting, and soon 
afterwards Colonel Young let the gunmen go. 

I gave one of the gunmen a job punchin’ cattle. 
John was the only name we ever knew him by; no 
one was indiscreet enough to ask him if he had 
another. When I left the Llano Ranch and went to 
the Square and Compass, I took him with me. Two 
years later he went to Montana with a shipment 
of steers. He didn’t come back, and I didn’t hear of 
him for five years. Then I received a fine, hand¬ 
made bridle and two dozen watch chains all made of 
horse hair. A note accompanying them instructed me 
to sell the articles, and send the money to the war¬ 
den of the penitentiary at-, Montana. The pro¬ 
ceeds would go to Convict No.-. I always thought 




116 


ROLLIE BURNS 


this was John. I sold the bridle for $25 and the watch 
chains for $1.50 each, and sent the money as directed. 
Three months later I received two dozen watch 
chains, but no bridle. The sale of the second ship¬ 
ment was slow, for the market was glutted. I finally 
sold a dozen and sent the money to the warden. A 
few weeks later the money was returned to me with a 

letter stating that Convict No.-was not there 5 

I never knew whether he died, escaped, or was 
turned loose. 

In the summer of 1884, I saw three coyotes run 
down an antelope. As a rule, an antelope runs in a 
straight line at first, but will eventually swing into a 
wide circle as mustangs do. When I first saw the race 
after coming over a ridge, the antelope was already 
running in a circle, and one coyote was after him. I 
stopped and watched the chase. In a little while the 
coyote doing the running dropped out, and a second 
coyote took up the chase. He made a circle or two, 
and the third one relieved him. It was apparent that 
the coyotes were using the same tactics on the ante¬ 
lope that men used on mustangs. The coyotes were 
gaining on the antelope. The longer the chase lasted, 
the smaller became the circle and the more distance 
the coyotes could cut by keeping on the inside of the 
circle. I sat on my horse and looked on for two hours 
before the coyotes captured their prize. I did not 
molest them. I thought that since they had used so 
much sense in the chase they had earned their fresh 
meat. 

A few days later I saw a buzzard light on the rim 



THE LLANO RANCH 


117 


of the Caprock and disappear in a hole near the 
edge. I figured there was a buzzard’s nest in the cave; 
and I had always wanted to see one. I tied my horse 
and climbed the bluff. The hole was shallow, and 
when I got up even with it I saw a mother buzzard 
and two young buzzards. The young ones were the 
ugliest things I had ever seen. When she saw me, 
the old buzzard came to the edge of the cave and 
began to flop her wings and vomit. I backed off and 
wondered if vomiting was the way she had of de¬ 
fending her young. After she retired to the rear of 
the cave I went a little closer. The old buzzard came 
out and began to vomit at me again. It was the worst 
smelling scent I ever came in contact with. After the 
old buzzard made such a heroic defense of her young, 
I left without taking a shot at her. 

Since I have learned that vomiting is the buzzard’s 
only means of defense, but take my word for it, it is 
effective. I am sure that no vermin with a sense of 
smell would ever venture into a buzzard’s nest. I 
have seen lots of carcasses of buzzards and coyotes, 
but I have never seen a single one that had been 
molested by other vermin. I doubt seriously if there 
is anything in the world that will eat a buzzard; 
I am not so sure about coyotes. 

We had a puncher on the ranch whom we called 
Sam. He was a good fellow and a top hand, but he 
had never heard of any rules of hygiene. He had 
lots of hair on his body and was always dirty. He 
brought a stock of lice with him to the ranch. The 
lice spread in the bunk house and the other boys got 


118 


ROLLIE BURNS 


a supply. They got to where they would bet on louse 
fights. Two boys would get up a bet, each would 
catch a louse off his body, and place the combatants 
together on a slicker spread on the ground. The lice 
would fight, but the bets would usually have to be 
called off, because in the mix-up the identity of the 
lice would be lost and there was no way of telling 
whose louse won. However, both punchers would 
claim that the winner belonged to him. 

I sent to Colorado City for two forty-gallon wash 
pots. I had the boys take all their clothes and bedding 
and boil them in these pots. At the same time I had 
the boys take baths with lots of lye soap. It took 
three general dippings to rid the place of lice. After 
that we made Sam take a bath and change clothes 
at least once every three months. 

Sam thought a lot of me. He worked hard, saved 
his money, and had no relatives. He always said he 
intended to leave his money to me. After I left the 
Llanos he was manager for a month or so, but was 
too unlettered to handle the business. He couldn’t 
go to town without getting on a spree. In 1891 he 
went to Colorado City, got on a big spree, and died 
in a house of prostitution. He had about $2,500 in 
the bank at the time. The prostitutes managed to get 
all his money before he died. While he was drunk 
they had him go to the bank and draw it out in $400 
or $500 lots. Many people thought that he was a 
victim of foul play. His virtues and weaknesses were 
typical of a certain class of punchers. 

In October, 1883, I went to Fisher County and 


THE LLANO RANCH 


119 


bought seventy-five unbroken saddle horses from Sol 
Barron. Coming back through Scurry County, I struck 
up with Jim McCommis and engaged him to come 
to the Llano Ranch and break the Barron horses. Jim 
was a likable, handsome fellow, tall, blue-eyed, 
sandy-haired, with a short mustache. He was a big 
success with the ladies, as was evidenced by the fact 
that he got one to marry him at a time when there 
were only two eligible young ladies in Dickens and 
Crosby Counties and each one had a score or more 
of suitors. In 1883 he married Della Browning. 
When I made the trade with Jim about the horses, 
it was agreed that his wife was to keep house at 
headquarters and do the cooking when the wagon 
cook was out on the range. 

About four months after they came to the ranch, 
Mrs. McCommis became faint one morning and be¬ 
gan to feel the pains of child-birth. It was her first 
time, and she was nervous and apprehensive about 
it all. Jim was busting broncs at the corrals when 
she went out and told him about it. It was eighty 
miles to the nearest available doctor. It would take 
him at least twenty-four hours to get there, provided 
one could be found when the rider got to town. 
Besides the pains were coming fast already. 

The baby, a girl, was born without medical aid, 
disinfectants, or anesthetics to alleviate the pain, and 
with only the hard, clumsy hands of Jim to assist. 
It died a few hours after it was born, a sacrifice to 
frontier privations. The boys all came in and we got 
things ready for the burial. John Hefker, the Ger- 


120 


ROLLIE BURNS 


man wagon cook, was a sort of carpenter and made 
the coffin. He had to take some boards off the grain 
house. The little coffin, a foot wide, a foot deep, and 
two and a half feet long, was rough and we lined 
the inside with a sheet. We dressed the baby in a 
little white dress its mother had spent many hours 
making months before, anxious, intent, wondering. It 
was a pretty baby, not so red as most new-born in¬ 
fants are, and when we placed it in its coffin, we had 
a hard time to keep from breaking down. The boys 
dug the grave between two cedar bushes northwest 
of the house. They went to the creek and got six 
large slabs of stone to make a vault for the coffin 
in the bottom of the grave. They put one in the bot¬ 
tom for a floor 3 then roughly hewed four to make 
the sides, and shaped one for the top. 

Late in the afternoon we had everything ready 
for the burial. Two cowboys carried the little coffin, 
and the rest of us trailed along behind. Mrs. Mc- 
Gommis could not go. Things had gone badly with 
her, and we still did not know whether she would 
live or not. Jim left her a few minutes to come along 
with us. 

An open grave, a tiny coffin, and a dozen rough- 
fisted, hardworking cowpunchers standing around 
was all we had. We didn’t have any singing, praying, 
or speech-making. What we did was probably more 
effective than that. We just placed the little coffin 
in the rock vault and paused for a moment. Every¬ 
thing was awfully still, and there was moisture in 
every puncher’s eyes. Two or three were sniffling a 


THE LLANO RANCH 


121 


little bit, and big, hot tears were running down Jim’s 
cheeks. Then we placed the slab of stone over the 
coffin, and filled the grave. This was the first birth 
and first burial in Garza county. 

Mrs. McCommis’ whole life was identified with 
the frontier. Two months after the burial of her 
baby, she started on a trek across the Plains, driving 
her own wagon behind a trail herd her husband was 
bossing. Jim was taking 3,500 J MIL cattle to New 
Mexico. The outfit had a four-horse chuck wagon, 
and Mrs. McCommis trailed along behind with a 
two-horse wagon containing everything that she and 
Jim owned. They went up the Yellow House, by 
Fort Sumner, and delivered the cattle to the Mill’s 
Ranch on the upper Penasco River. In 1885 Jim was 
sent back to Scurry County to get another J MIL 
herd, and she trailed along behind him in her wagon, 
this time with a child to look after. Jim trailed this 
herd by way of Midland and Pecos. They were from 
October to the middle of January getting to the 
Penasco River. The last few days of the drive was 
made in snow two feet deep, Mrs. McCommis still 
driving her wagon, attending her child, and heavy 
with another. 

She went on trailing after her husband, to New 
Mexico, to Texas, to Arizona, to California, a new 
child appearing every year or two, occasionally 
losing one. She had nineteen children and buried 
nine of them. Finally she buried Jim in Big Pine, 
California, in 1912. After her husband died the lure 
of the trail still called her. She took her seven 


122 


ROLLIE BURNS 


youngest children and trekked back to New Mexico, 
where she is still living in the most primitive country 
left. 

In May, 1884, I had a peculiar experience with 
lightning. We had been on a round-up at Yellow 
House Canyon just above Singer’s Store. We started 
back with our herd and camped about eight miles 
below where Lubbock was later located. That night 
an electrical storm came up, and all hands turned 
out to help hold the cattle. I never before or since 
saw such a display of lightning. It commenced with 
flash lightning; then it became forked lightning; then 
chain lightning, followed by a peculiar blue light¬ 
ning. After that show, it quickly developed into ball 
lightning, which rolled along the ground, and after 
that, spark lightning. You could see it on the horns 
of the cattle, on the ears of our horses, and the 
brims of our hats. Most extraordinary of all, the 
lightning settled down on us like a fog. The air 
smelled of burning sulphur. It grew so hot and 
sultry, we thought we would be burned. The cattle 
were extremely nervous until the storm passed about 
an hour later. 

I had always thought that a vinegar-roan was ex¬ 
tremely poisonous, but in June, 1884, I changed my 
mind about it. We were rounding-up in the Llano 
pasture. After breakfast one morning the cook started 
to empty the grounds out of the coflfee pot, when he 
noticed a queer looking insect among the grounds. 
He called me (I was the only one left in camp) and 
asked what I thought it was. I told him it was a 


THE LLANO RANCH 


123 


vinegar-roan. The cook got pale, and began to com¬ 
plain of feeling sick. Then he got panicky, and knew 
that all the boys would die. I figured that his ailment 
was purely imaginary, so I manufactured a lie for 
him. 

“I was working with an outfit one time when the 
cook found a whole nest of vinegar-roans in the 
coffee grounds.” 

“Did the boys die?” 

“No, it just gave them more pep.” 

That seemed to help the cook, and he was soon 
feeling better. I told him not to tell the boys, for 
they might run him out of camp. I also suggested 
that it would be a good idea to wash the coffee pot 
after each meal, and keep it covered up. The vinegar- 
roan juice did not seem to hurt any of the boys. A 
few days later I told them about the incident. Some 
of them “remembered” that they had felt puny that 
day, but others said they had never felt better and 
told the cook to put a vinegar-roan in the coffee 
every morning. 

The Llano Company had made lots of enemies. 
The free-rangers on all sides were dogged, sullen, 
and abusive. As I was the manager and resident rep¬ 
resentative of the absentee owners who had dared to 
string wire with prickly barbs on it around the grass 
and water holes which belonged to free-rangers by 
divine right, it was I who received their maledictions. 
There were men who hated me cordially enough 
to have taken a pot shot at me if they had had suffi¬ 
cient opportunity. Aside from the physical aspect, 


124 


ROLLIE BURNS 


there was the social outlook. I was more or less iso¬ 
lated. I couldn’t hail and be jolly with most of my 
neighbors. A friendly greeting would likely bring 
forth a scowl. In July, 1884, 1 decided that the salary 
I was getting was not worth the unpleasantness which 
the position entailed, and sent my resignation to 
President Young. 

But times were changing fast. Barbed wire with 
its sharp, pointed spikes was provoking a revolution 
in the cattle business. Within two years practically 
all of the free-rangers who had given me trouble 
had to move their cattle on to New Mexico, and their 
former ranges were acquired and fenced by cattlemen 
and companies who had more vision than they. 


CHAPTER XI 

THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 

The week I resigned as manager of the Llano 
Cattle Company I started negotiations with the Nave- 
McCord Cattle Company in regard to the manager¬ 
ship of the Square and Compass, , Ranch. 

Colonel Young wrote a strong recommendation, and 
this together with the fact that Mr. Nave had known 
my father during the 50’s in Missouri, secured me 
the place. The same day I left the Llano Ranch I 
took charge of the Square and Compass outfit. 

Abram Nave and James McCord were wholesale 
grocers at Saint Jo, Missouri. They had wholesale 
houses in Saint Jo, Omaha, Denver and Kansas City. 
When cattle prices began to soar during the early 
80’s, they decided to invest their surplus in the cattle 
ranching business. In 1882 they bought 1,500 head 
of cattle, and the range rights of Jim and Finis 
Lindsey on the Double Mountain River at the mouth 
of Spring Creek, Garza County. They bought more 
cattle from George B. Loving in Jack County. For 
a number of years they built up the size of their herd 
by retaining all the heifers. 

125 


126 


ROLLIE BURNS 


From the outset they started a policy of acquiring 
the land where their cattle ranged. By 1884 they had 
purchased and leased a tract eighteen miles north and 
south and twelve miles east and west, with a range 
capacity of about twelve thousand cattle. The ranch 
lay directly south of the Llanos with the west line 
reaching about three miles farther west than the 
Llano west line. About half of the land was on 
the Plains and about half in the breaks east of the 
Caprock. This made a desirable location. The broken 
country made a good winter pasture, and in the sum¬ 
mer no finer grass was to be found anywhere than 
on the Plains. 

The headquarters was located between the Cap- 
rock and Double Mountain River 1 near the present 
headquarters of the John L. Slaughter estate. The 
main house had two large frame rooms and porch in 
front with two long shed rooms behind used as dining 
room and kitchen. Nearby was a bunk house, sixteen 
by thirty. The corrals, when I took charge, were made 
of rock against the Caprock on the south side. They 
were constructed in such a way that in the afternoon 
cattle had to be driven in against the sun. For some 
reason it is very difficult to pen cattle against the sun. 

1 There has been some confusion as to the identity of the 
Double Mountain River. Some maps show Yellow House Creek 
as the upper Double Mountain. Historically, the upper Double 
Mountain is the prong which rises in Lynn • County in what is 
locally known as Mooar’s Draugh and runs through the southern 
part of Garza County and makes a junction with Yellow House 
Creek in Kent County, about fifteen miles southwest of Claire- 
mont. 



THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 


127 


One of the first things I did was to have lumber 
hauled from Colorado City and new plank corrals 
made with approaches from the south. 

In the fall of 1884 Nave and McCord made a re¬ 
organization in the ranch management. From the be¬ 
ginning they had an official called general manager, 
who had an office at Fort Worth, and spent most of 
his time there. This position was held by a man 

named Z-. Occasionally, Z-would come to 

Colorado City for a few days, and more rarely would 
pay the ranch a flying visit. He was a northern man 
and knew little about cattle. About two months after 
I became the ranch manager Mr. Nave sent word to 
both Z— and myself to meet him in Colorado 
City. When he arrived he found Z- had reg¬ 

istered at the Saint James Hotel, but was not to be 
found. Mr. Nave soon ran across me, and together 

we went to look for Z-. At last we located him, 

drunk, in a house of prostitution. Mr. Nave promptly 
fired Z— and abolished the position of general man¬ 
ager. Thereafter I had all my relations directly with 
the company at Saint Jo. 

By this time Nave and McCord had decided the 
time had come to start fencing. Since they had a legal 
title to their land, two substantial benefits would ac¬ 
crue from inclosing the range j they could better 
handle their own cattle and do it with fewer men, 
and they could better prevent outsiders from making 
use of their grass. The company bought half interest 
in the Llano fence on the north side of the Square 
and Compass range, and let a contract for the con- 






128 


ROLL1E BURNS 


struction of the other three sides. The contractor did 
the south line first, the west line next, and the east 
line last. 

He procured posts from the cedar brakes east of 
the Caprock, and set them in the line every sixty 
feet. The Llanos put posts at forty feet, but ex¬ 
perience showed that sixty-foot spans were better than 
forty-foot ones. The longer panels allowed more 
give, and an animal was not so apt to break the wire 
when he hit the fence. Three stays were placed be¬ 
tween each set of posts. Wire cost three dollars a 
hundred at Colorado City plus the price of hauling, 
which was sixty cents a hundred. The distance from 
Colorado City was sixty-five miles. The total cost of 
the fence was approximately $100 a mile. 

When the contractor finished his job, I inspected 
and accepted the fence. It was necessary for us to 
go to Colorado City to make settlement. We stopped 
at the Saint James Hotel, I figured out what was 
due him, and gave him a check. He was perfectly 
satisfied with the amount. After supper I ran over 
my figures again and found I had made a mistake of 
forty-odd dollars in the company’s favor. I went out 
to look for the man and found him half drunk in 
a saloon. I told him I had made a mistake, and if 
he would come to the hotel next morning I would 
make the correction. He promised to be there prompt¬ 
ly at nine o’clock. I have never seen the man to this 
day. He probably thought the mistake was in his 
favor and that I had overpaid him. 

In July, 1884, I rode over one morning to the 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 


129 


Jumbo headquarters to see if any mail had been left 
there for us. If anyone from that ranch went to 
Colorado he brought out mail for all the neighbors, 
and when any of us went to town we did the same. 
In this way we usually managed to get the mail about 
every two or three weeks. When I got to the Jumbo 
Ranch the men were all away on a round-up. Mrs. 
Palmer, the housekeeper, came running out to tell 
me there was a very sick puncher in the bunk house. 
He had been up there “reping” for the “Lum” 
Slaughter outfit, and had gotten so sick three days 
before he had to come in and go to bed. 

I went to the bunk house and, at a glance, I knew 
he was in a critical condition. I told him that he had 
better let us send him to the nearest doctor at Snyder 
at once. He agreed, and I hurried back to the Square 
and Compass headquarters for our two-horse hack. 
I thought I would send a man to drive the hack, 
but there was not a man on the place, and I didn’t 
think it wise to take the time to go and find one. I 
put a pair of springs and a mattress in the back of 
the hack and went back as fast as I could to get the 
sick man. It was noon when we got started to Snyder, 
forty miles away. I wanted to drive through without 
stopping. 

In the afternoon the man got delirious and violent; 
I had to tie him to his bed. I knew time was getting 
precious and I kept watching the sun. I remembered 
how an old gentleman—I believe his name was 
Joshua—had commanded the sun to stand still, and 
I wished I might be able to do some commanding 


130 


ROLLIE BURNS 


myself. There was only one house on the road to 
Snyder j it was on the bank of Gavitt Creek and was 
occupied by a family by the name of Knowles. I was 
hoping I would be able to get someone there to go 
on to Snyder and help me care for the sick man. An 
electrical storm came up about dark just before I 
got to Knowles’, and it soon got so dark I could not 
see the road except when the lightning flashed. When 
I got to Knowles’ there was no one there except Mrs. 
Knowles and five small children. I thought of going 
on alone but Mrs. Knowles said the creek had just 
come down bank full and could not be crossed. 

There was nothing to do but spend the night. I 
got the sick puncher in the house, and then had to 
hold him on the bed all night. He moaned, yelled, 
prayed and rolled. I was tired to start with and next 
morning I felt like I had been a week in a mad house. 
Mrs. Knowles kept the coffee pot on the stove all 
night and I had drunk a half gallon of strong, black 
coffee. By daylight the creek had run down and I 
got the man in the hack and started on. 

When I got to Snyder I carried the puncher to the 
little, one-horse hotel, and the people would not take 
him in unless I would guarantee to pay the expense. 
I hustled the doctor, and he would not have anything 
to do with the case unless I promised to be re¬ 
sponsible. I obligated myself for all expenses and 
left the puncher in the doctor’s care. Three hours 
after I left, he died. The doctor said he had in¬ 
flammation of the bowels, but it was probably ap¬ 
pendicitis. Physicians did not seem to know anything 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 


131 


about appendicitis in those days, and pronounced such 
cases “inflammation of the bowels” and let the pa¬ 
tient die. Had surgery been more highly developed 
then, the man’s life might have been saved by a 
timely operation. 

In October, 1884, we drove a beef herd of 1,600 
steers to Colorado City. We carried along a wagon 
and a crew of eight men. The first night we camped 
in the Jumbo pasture; the second night, on Bull 
Creek in the Magnolia, or M K range; the third 
night, on Bull Creek in the Triangle H Triangle 
range, and the fifth day we watered on Deep Creek, 
near Colorado City. We had to hold the herd a few 
days because we could not get cars. After we loaded 
out, I turned the boys loose for the customary two 
nights and a day. On the second day we headed back 
for the ranch, a two-day trip going back. 

As soon as the fall work was done in November, 
1884, I left the ranch on a most important mission. 
I was going to get married. I left my team and hack 
at Mooar Brothers’ livery stable at Colorado City and 
took the train to Gatesville. 

My fiancee, Miss Mary Emma Boles, was thirteen 
when her family moved from Illinois in 1877 to 
Denison in Grayson County. The family settled near 
my father’s place. I had seen her a few times, and 
the last time I visited my family I went to see her 
once or twice. In 1882 we got to writing to each other. 
In the meanwhile her family moved to Coryell 
County and settled near Gatesville. Our courtship 
was conducted almost entirely by correspondence. 


132 


ROLLIE BURNS 


Once I paid a negro five dollars to go to Estacado for 
a letter, and when he got there he found none. We 
kept all our love letters until our house burned in 
1915. For over thirty years of my married life, every 
time I did something Mrs. Burns did not like, she 
could produce those old letters and show me what 
I had promised. Since 1915, however, she has been 
without documentary evidence as to my courting 
declarations. When we were married, we left im¬ 
mediately for Colorado. There we purchased a few 
household articles and started for the ranch in the 
hack. It took two days to make the trip. 

For awhile Mrs. Burns was the only woman in 
Garza County. There had been four others, Mrs. 
Laura Cooper, Mrs. Jim McCommis, Mrs. Captain 
Hall, and a Mrs. Wescott, but they had all left the 
county. Soon afterwards I got a man and his wife at 
headquarters to cook and do general work. A few 
months later Nick Beal, manager of the Jumbo, or 
Buckle B (DB Ranch, whose headquarters was six 
miles south of ours, brought his wife out. A short 
time after that Mr. and Mrs. Coon Cooper returned 
and began working on the Llano Ranch. That made 
five women in the county. The next spring George 
and Will Boles, my wife’s brothers, came out and 
started working on the Square and Compass as cow¬ 
boys. This kept Mrs. Burns from getting so lonesome 
in a country where the nearest neighbors were six 
miles away. 

Late in the fall of 1884 there were several days 
of cold rain and sleet from the northeast. All over 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 133 


West Texas cattle started drifting southwest. They 
did the most of their moving at night, and the ranch¬ 
men were not aware of the enormity of the drift 
until the spell of weather was over. Cattle on the 
Plains drifted off the Caprock to the southwest in 
New Mexico. A great number of the cattle in our 
country went to the Pecos River. Our range was 
full of Matador and Spur cattle from the north¬ 
east. 

There was no chance of getting the cattle back 
before spring. In March over twenty ranchmen sent 
wagon outfits to the Pecos country. I sent a wagon 
with Pete McSpadden as boss, an extra puncher, a 
cook, and a wrangler. Eight stray cowboys (men from 
ranches that had not sent wagons) were attached to 
our wagon. When all the outfits got to the Pecos, 
there were so many they could not effectively work 
without organization. Somebody sent word around 
for all bosses to meet in a consultation. Gus O’Keefe, 
from the “Lum” Slaughter ranch, was elected gen¬ 
eral superintendent. 

A general round-up was held, and no attempt was 
made to separate the cattle. Each outfit was given a 
herd of mixed cattle to drive to the head of Colorado 
River where the cattle were again concentrated and 
separated. There were only two watering places be¬ 
tween the Pecos and the Colorado. The cattlemen 
had to arrange with the Texas and Pacific Railroad 
to haul water for a third watering. Over 30,000 cattle 
were driven east of the Colorado. Practically the 
entire calf crop in the drift was lost. This experience 


134 


ROLL1E BURNS 


caused many ranchmen to think more seriously about 
fencing their ranges. 

In February I had heard that a number of Square 
and Compass cattle were in the Cedar Lake country 
in Gaines County. About the time McSpadden’s out¬ 
fit started for the Pecos, I took another wagon and set 
out for Cedar Lake. The third day out, as we were 
approaching the lake, I was riding my top horse, 
Tallow Eye, behind the remuda. Four of the boys 
were riding half a mile in front of the wagon and 
remuda. Suddenly I heard shots and yelling, and 
looked up to see the boys chasing nine grown buf¬ 
faloes. They were coming quartering in my direc¬ 
tion. I had a Winchester on my saddle, and it didn’t 
take long to get alongside an old cow. I brought her 
down the second shot. The other boys were much dis¬ 
appointed in not getting a buffalo, but I had the ad¬ 
vantage j Tallow Eye was fast and not afraid of a 
buffalo, and their horses were. So far as I know, 
this was the last wild buffalo killed on the South 
Plains. 

We took the hide and meat from the buffalo and 
went on to “One Arm” Anderson’s place on the north 
end of the lake, where there were some fresh water 
springs. Anderson was at camp, and I told him I had 
killed a buffalo. He gave me a sour and disconcerting 
look and said, “You have killed one of my tame 
buffaloes.” 

“But this buffalo was a wild one.” 

“I captured six calves last year. They are now 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 


135 


yearlings, and the only buffaloes left in this coun¬ 
try.” 

“Well, Mr. Anderson, if your buffaloes were year¬ 
lings, the one I killed was not yours, for she was an 
old cow.” 

Then we brought out the hide and showed him. 
He apologized and became quite friendly. He told 
us that an outfit from the I O A, or Cross C Ranch, 
in Lubbock County, had rounded up the Cedar Lake 
country, and had taken all strays from the north and 
east back with them. Next morning he eave me one 
of his yearling buffaloes. I told him I could not take 
it with me but I would come after it sometime during 
the year. He later sent me word to come and get the 
buffalo, but I never did go. 

The next morning I started the outfit to the I O A 
Ranch, and I took a chunk of the buffalo meat and 
went directly home. My wife and several of the 
punchers at the ranch had never tasted buffalo meat, 
so the piece I carried home was quite a novelty. 

A short time later the ranch owners of Northwest 
Texas (not including the Panhandle) met in Abilene 
and organized the general spring round-ups. They 
divided the country into three districts. One included 
the region drained by the Colorado River and its 
tributaries from Colorado City to the Plains; the 
second, the Double Mountain and Salt Forks of the 
Brazos from the east Kent County line west, together 
with the upper Pease region, and the third district 
lay east of the second. The ranchmen of each district 
elected a general superintendent, who was to receive 


136 


ROLLIE BURNS 


five dollars a day for the duration of the work. He 
was to have full charge of all wagons and men— 
twelve to fifteen wagons with from ten to fifteen 
men each. Any one not obeying the superintendent 
was to be discharged by his manager. The superin¬ 
tendent was to consult with the manager of each 
range as to the best way to work it. 

When the cattlemen of the Double Mountain and 
Salt Fork district met to elect their superintendent, 
Colonel Young addressed the meeting: “There is a 
man in this audience who has the ability and courage 
for this important position. He was manager of our 
ranch (Llanos) and is now manager of the Square 
and Compass. I nominate Rollie Burns.” 

I was elected without opposition. I thanked the 
ranchmen, and told them I was sure my employers 
would not like for me to be away for sixty days at 
one time, but that I would appoint an assistant super¬ 
intendent, and give as much of my time to the matter 
as possible. This was satisfactory. 

When the round-up began, I appointed Dick 
Palmer, wagon boss for the Matadors, as assistant 
superintendent. Dick made a good executive, and 
when I received my check from the association I en¬ 
dorsed it and sent it on to him. Next spring I was 
elected general superintendent again, and appointed 
Henry Ramsey, wagon boss for an outfit in Scurry 
County 5 he made good. In the spring of 1887 I was 
elected for a third time, and appointed Boley Brown 
as assistant. He proved to be very satisfactory. That 
was the last year of the general round-up. The coun- 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 


137 


try was pretty well fenced up by that time, and cattle 
could not stray from their ranges as they had before. 
After 1887, round-ups became local affairs. Each 
ranch held its own round-ups, and the neighboring 
ranches sent men to “rep” for them. 

In the summer of 1885 we had a rather serious, 
stampede of our saddle horses. The horse pasture 
contained about four sections. The Caprock made the 
north and west boundaries, and there was a four-wire 
fence on the south and east sides. It was a foggy day, 
and the horses were over on the west side. A black 
bear came down the Caprock near the horses and 
gave them a tremendous scare. They ran across the 
horse pasture, struck the east fence, tore it down, 
and ran for miles in the big pasture. When we got 
them rounded up, we found thirty-eight out of a 
hundred and forty were badly cut. I sewed the 
wounds up with a surgeon’s needle and linen thread, 
which we always kept on hand. One horse was hope¬ 
lessly cut and had to be killed. No one saw the bear 
at the time, but one had been seen the day before, and 
we found where he had come down the Caprock near 
where the stampede began. 

While riding along Gavitt Creek on my way to 
spend a few days with the general round-up during 
the summer of 1885, I saw an eagle about a mile off 
flying in a circle and making peculiar maneuvers. He 
would drop to the ground and then rise again. I con¬ 
cluded he was trying to catch something, and I turned 
in his direction to see what it was. Closer I saw he 
was after a young deer. I stopped my horse to watch 


138 


ROLLIE BURNS 


the performance. The eagle would dip down and 
catch the deer with both claws in the loins just in 
front of the hips, and turn the deer heels over head. 
The third time the deer was thrown it did not try 
to get up. I suppose it was tired and exhausted. The 
eagle then lit on the ground and began to peck out 
the eyes of the deer. At this point I decided to in¬ 
terfere, put spurs to my horse and dashed over the 
intervening two hundred yards. I presume the bird 
was too busy thinking about the good eats of juicy 
venison he was about to have to keep his eagle eye 
on anything other than his prey. I was within twenty 
feet of him before he saw me. I fired two shots with 
my six-shooter before he could take off, and broke 
his wing. A third shot finished him, and then I turned 
to the deer. The eagle had destroyed one eye. I lifted 
it on its feet, and it ran off in a zig-zag way on 
account of losing the eye. 

About a year later I witnessed a similar occurrence 
on the Square and Compas Ranch. This time the 
eagle was after a young calf. I was quite a distance 
off when I saw the eagle throw the calf head over 
heels. By the time I got there the eagle had both 
eyes pecked out, and had begun to peck a place in 
the calf’s flank where the hide is thinnest and nearest 
to the calf’s entrails. That is the eagle’s method— 
to peck out the eyes and disembowel his prey before 
the victim is dead. I took a shot at the bird, but 
missed. 

At the time eagles were injuring and killing many 
calves, especially in the breaks just off the Caprock. 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 


139 


I instructed all the cowboys to kill an eagle every 
chance they got. We found a roosting place on the 
head of Double Mountain Fork, about ten miles 
above our headquarters. We made a number of raids 
up there at night and killed many eagles. 

During the 8 CPs and 9 CPs I experienced a number 
of “blue northers,” but the bluest of them all was 
in January, 1886. I left Colorado City for the ranch 
on January 13, about ten o’clock in the morning. It 
was a beautiful day, clear, still, warm. I was riding 
my top horse, Tallow Eye, a fine, gaited saddle horse 
as well as a good cow horse. I enjoyed the first five or 
six miles of the ride, and then I noticed a blue streak 
low down in the far north. I knew what it meant. 
I think “Tallow Eye” noticed it about the time I did, 
for he began to get nervous and wanted to go faster. 
I kept watching the blue streak and saw it was rising 
fast. Tallow Eye was getting excited, and a slight 
touch with my spurs was sufficient signal for him to 
speed up. In a mile or two we overtook a buggy 
going in the same direction. The driver was Bayless 
Wagoner, manager of the Triangle H Triangle 
Ranch, owned by the Alabama and Texas Cattle 
Company. I asked Wagoner what he thought of the 
blue streak. He said it was a “blue swishler” dead 
sure, and for me to tie my horse to the side of his 
horses and get in the buggy. We could both get under 
his lap-robe, and by driving fast we ought to get to 
the Triangle H Triangle before it got very cold. 

It was about ten miles to the ranch, but we had 
not gone over a mile when the norther was on us. 


140 


ROLLIE BURNS 


It hit us with a force that almost upset the buggy, and 
the wind was icy. I am confident that we had zero 
weather within ten minutes. Wagoner put the horses 
in a gallop and occasionally in a run. We were not 
over forty-five minutes getting to the ranch, but we 
were almost stiff when we got there. Wp drove up 
on the south side of the house and called to the boys 
to come take the horses. We were so numb the boys 
had to help get us into the house. 

There was a big box stove in the center of the 
room, and the boys had it full of good mesquite 
wood. The stove was red hot, but it thawed us out 
slowly. The house was badly built to keep out cold 
weather. The floor was a foot from the ground, and 
the house had no underpinning. There were cracks 
in the floor and the wind rushed through. The house 
was a good summer house, but not so much in the 
winter. Not one of the six of us pretended to go to 
bed. We hugged the stove all night. It was too cold 
for a game of cards or a yarn. 

When daylight came, the cook went out to cut 
some beef for breakfast. The beef had been hanging 
from the windmill tower all night and was frozen 
hard. He came back and reported that he couldn’t 
cut any meat, and we would have to eat breakfast 
without any steak. I told Wagoner to tell the cook 
to lay the meat on the ground and chop off some 
hunks of steak with the axe. 

After breakfast I told Wagoner I must get on to¬ 
wards home. The weather had not abated a bit, but 
I had a wife and baby and twelve thousand cattle I 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 


141 


wanted to see about. I thought that if I could get 
twenty-five miles to the Magnolia Ranch that day, I 
would be able to get home the next. We had to face 
the wind all day. We would trot, lope, and occasional¬ 
ly go in a dead run. When Tallow Eye began to get 
tired I would walk and lead him until I got tired. 
When we got to the Magnolia Ranch, Jack Rogers, 
the manager, saw me before I got to the house. He 
ran out and helped me to dismount. By this time I 
was almost stiff, notwithstanding I had on heavy 
woollen socks, clothing, and overcoat. 

The Magnolia ranch house was better built than 
the Triangle H Triangle headquarters, and could be 
heated more easily. That night Rogers put me to bed 
in a room reserved for the “high-ups” from Ken¬ 
tucky. I had not slept for two days and a night, and 
that night I made up for it. The next morning the 
cook went to the well to get water for breakfast, and 
found the water twenty feet below the surface frozen 
over. It was a dug well about three or four feet in 
diameter. The cook had to put a heavy weight on the 
end of a lariat to break the ice. 

That day Tallow Eye and I made the last 
lap to the Square and Compass by noon. I found my 
wife and baby all right, although they had had 
trouble keeping warm with all the wood they could 
burn. My wife’s brother, George Boles, had been 
there keeping fires going. George said he had killed 
an antelope when the blizzard struck and was just 
fixing to skin it. The hide froze before he could 
finish, and he had to quit. 


142 


ROLLIE BURNS 


I was anxious to find out how the cattle were stand¬ 
ing the driving cold. I asked the boys if they had 
been to the southwest corner of the pasture, and found 
that they had not. I knew that all the cattle on the 
Plains had drifted there, so I took a couple of hands 
and rode to the southwest corner. We found about 
a thousand head congregated there, and about four 
hundred were already dead or practically dead. We 
drove the remainder off the Caprock into the breaks, 
but the most of them were frozen so badly their 
hoofs later dropped olf and many died. Altogether, 
I figured the direct and indirect losses due to this 
blizzard were about 1,500, or about fifteen per cent 
of the entire herd. Since that experience I am always 
glad when January 13 is past. 

Nick Beal, manager of the Jumbo Cattle Com¬ 
pany, and I had a way of cooperating on outside 
work. One time I would send a wagon and four men 
and he would send four men; that made a workable 
crew. Next time he would send a wagon and four 
men and I would just send four men. In the spring 
of 1886 we had sent an outfit to represent us at the 
round-ups in the Colorado River country. The outfit 
had worked several days and had accumulated quite 
a herd of our strays when an electrical storm came 
up during the night. Lightning and thunder cause 
more stampedes than anything else. Cattle become 
frantic, and their only thought seems to be to get 
away from the horrifying display and the noise. That 
night our herd was scared and restless, and all hands 
were out trying to hold them. One of the Jumbo 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 


143 


punchers and the mulatto horse wrangler happened 
to be close together when a bolt of lightning came 
down, and hit them both. It killed the puncher and 
his horse instantly. The mulatto fell in a puddle of 
water, and I suppose that must have saved his life. 
The crown of his hat was torn away, and there was 
a blue welt down his back. The bolt of lightning 
went from him through his horse and killed the 
horse. That experience made the other six men along 
afraid of electrical storms ever after that. 

The year of 1886 was a dry one. Cattle every¬ 
where suffered from lack of grass and water. If the 
elements lack moisture they seem to be surcharged 
with electricity. Practically every cloud had a violent 
electrical display with little or no rain. A short time 
after the two men in our outfit were struck, two 
punchers in another outfit on the same work were 
killed by lightning. That fall we were driving a beef 
herd to Colorado City, when one of those violent 
little clouds gathered to the west of us. In a few 
moments the streaked lightning began to make an 
almost continuous display, and thunder was sharply 
clashing on the hills to the west; the cloud was com¬ 
ing in our direction. Some of the boys had been in 
the Colorado River round-ups the previous spring 
when the men were killed, and I had heard them say 
they would not stay with any herd of cattle when a 
bad electrical storm was on. I left my watch, ring 
and spurs at the wagon and went out and told the 
boys to go to the wagon and I would hold the herd 
the best I could. They all went, and I never felt 


144 


ROLLIE BURNS 


more like leaving a herd and going myself. With 
every flash of lightning and roar of thunder I felt 
a little yellow streak in me. Each roar caused cattle 
to run by me. Fortunately, the storm was quickly 
over, and we had not gone over two miles when the 
boys overtook us. They began to make apologies and 
excuses for leaving the herd, but I told them I did 
not blame them, and for a little more I would have 
left myself. 

In August, 1886, the first election was held in 
Garza County. The county was attached to Scurry, 
and we participated in the election of Scurry County 
officers, as well as state officials. I was appointed Pre¬ 
siding Officer of Elections of Precinct Number 1. 
That precinct included the whole county. The polls 
were at our headquarters, and about twelve or fifteen 
voted. That included all eligible voters from the 
Square and Compass, the Llanos, and the Coopers, 
and some small cattlemen in the east side of the 
county. 

The drouth of 1886 caused a shortage of stock 
water on our range. Prior to that time the Square and 
Compass had depended on natural watering places. 
The Double Mountain Fork, which traversed the 
ranch from west to east, always had holes of water 
in it which had never before gone dry, and there were 
a number of spring creeks which rose at the Caprock 
and flowed into the Double Mountain. During the 
summer of 1886 nearly all the springs and water 
holes dried up. I had to keep several men busy scrap¬ 
ing holes in the sandy bed of the river with teams 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 145 


and scrapers. The water would rise in these holes for 
a foot or so. We managed to keep sufficient water 
for the cattle, but the experience demonstrated the 
need for more watering facilities. That fall and 
winter I induced the owners to build two large tanks 
on arroyos in the breaks of the big pasture and a 
small tank on a little spring draugh in the horse 
pasture. We bored three wells on the Plains in the 
north part of the pasture and got an abundance of 
water at about a hundred and twenty feet. We put 
windmills over these wells and had that part of the 
pasture pretty well cared for. But we were not so 
fortunate with two wells in the southwest part of 
the pasture. We bored nearly three hundred feet and 
got scarcely any water at all in one, and barely enough 
in the other to furnish a line camp. The maximum 
capacity of the camp was one cowboy and four horses. 
However, with the tanks and the other three wells 
we never had another serious water shortage. 

In the spring of 1887 I had a spell of sickness 
which came well nigh getting me. The second day my 
family sent to Snyder for a doctor, who came and 
stayed sixteen days and nights. He pronounced my 
malady inflammation of the bowels. The doctor gave 
me up three or four times, but I fooled him and 
lived. I have described my condition and symptoms to 
several physicians since, and they have all been of 
the opinion that I had appendicitis, and that my ap¬ 
pendix burst. For days I vomited a substance as black 
as ink and of the vilest odor. I am sure it was my 
robust constitution that enabled me to throw the 


14-6 


ROLLIE BURNS 


poison out of my system. The sickness caused the 
insides of my intestines to peel off, and they became 
as thin as paper. The doctors told me it would be 
five years before I could ride a horse, but in two 
years I was riding as much as ever. 

While I was sick our second baby was born. When 
the first child came two years before, I carried my 
wife to Colorado a month before hand, and she had 
excellent care. She was not willing to leave me for 
the birth of the second child. It was impossible to 
get a doctor when she became ill, and the borning 
was without any kind of medical aid. The result was 
that I almost lost both my wife and the baby. 

When this child was a little over a year old we 
had a close call with him. Water was scarce on the 
range and I had been having the creek beds scraped. 
We missed the children one day and my wife sent 
me in search of them. I went to a tree where they 
had last been seen playing. From there I tracked 
them to the creek a mile and a half away. When I 
got there I saw Lynn’s little body floating face down¬ 
ward in the water of one of the holes the boys had 
scraped. His face was black when I took him out. I 
did everything I knew to restore a drowned person. 
I felt like I could not take the child back to its 
mother without life in it. Finally, I gave up, gathered 
him in my arms, and started to the house. I met my 
wife coming. She displayed more restraint and re¬ 
sourcefulness than most men would have under the 
circumstances. She said there was yet hope, and we 
set to work again. She told me to take him by the 


THE SQUARE AND COMPASS RANCH 14-7 


heels and shake him; I did, and a quantity of water 
ran out of his mouth. Then we went to the house 
and put him in hot water. A half hour after I had 
given up hope, he began to breathe again. I have al¬ 
ways ascribed the saving of the child to the level¬ 
headedness of my wife. 

I had been with the Square and Compass Ranch 
four years and three months, when I was offered the 
managership of the I O A, or Cross C Ranch in 
Lubbock County. The I O A outfit had about twice 
the land and cattle that the Square and Compass had, 
and the salary was higher. I accepted the place and 
took charge of the outfit December 1 1, 1888. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE I O A RANCH 

The Western Land and Live Stock Company was 
organized in 1884, at Davenport, Iowa, under the 
laws of Iowa, with a capital stock of $800,000. The 
company was made up of men residing in Daven¬ 
port, and Moline, Illinois. J. S. Keater was the presi¬ 
dent, but the active management was largely in the 
hands of the vice-president, S. W. Wheelock. Mr. 
Wheelock was the president of the Moline National 
Bank, the Moline Plow Company, the Moline 
Wagon Company, and the Moline Paper Company. 

The Western Land and Live Stock Company, 
wishing to do things in the approved way, established 
a Texas officer at Fort Worth and installed therein 
David Boaz, one of the directors, as general superin¬ 
tendent. It was Boaz’s business to purchase land and 
cattle and start the ranch off. Boaz decided that Yel¬ 
low House Canyon, in Lubbock County, was the most 
likely place still available. He started buying and 
leasing land with the vigor of a man who wanted to 
get started in the cattle business in a hurry. Within 
two years he had purchased or leased approximately 
148 


THE I O A RANCH 


149 


the south half of Lubbock County. The tract aver¬ 
aged fourteen by thirty miles, and included about 
four hundred and twenty sections. Among other 
lands he had leased the three sections in the old 
Williams sheep ranch along the Yellow House, and 
Williams’ house became the headquarters of the new 
ranch. 

The land was partially watered by Yellow House 
Creek, and Boaz hurried to get ten wells bored and 
ten windmills erected. In the meanwhile he was 
stocking the range with cattle. Cattle were high, and 
Boaz allowed cattlemen who knew how to sell to 
tenderfoot buyers to charge him more than the cattle 
were worth. He bought 20,000 head at prices never 
again reached until the Spanish-American War—an 
outlay of a half million dollars. 

In the meanwhile he was having the land fenced. 
Posts had to be hauled for fifty miles, and wire from 
Colorado. Two cross-fences were put in, cutting the 
range into the West, Middle, and East pastures. In 
all there were a hundred miles of fence, which cost 
the company approximately $15,000. There had to 
be saddle horses, and he bought two hundred for 
$ 8 , 000 . 

When he had started stocking the range with cattle, 
Boaz installed J. K. Millwee as ranch manager. 
Mill wee had worked for John Chissum in Lincoln 
County, New Mexico, before Billy the Kid had 
started the Lincoln County War. He had been a trail 
boss, and was considered as good as any who drove 
herds to Colorado and Kansas. 


150 


ROLLIE BURNS 


Nearly all of the directors of the company lived 
in Iowa. Local patriotism caused them to incorporate 
the “Iowa Motif” in their Texas ranch $ hence, the 
brand was I O A (pronounced I-O-Wa when said 
fast). The “A” was what was called an “open A,” 
made thus A This brand was placed on the original 
20,000 stock cattle. Millwee was not long in finding 
that Northern business men who tilted back in their 
swivel chairs in Davenport were most fallible 
when they came to adopting a brand. A brand could 
hardly have been selected that would have offered 
greater opportunities for changing by cattle thieves. 
It could easily be burned into . . . 

•JCW HO A' 10 A TOM MO A* HOA’ 

and a score of other variations. During 1885 and 
1886 thieves found good pickings on the I O A 
range. It was a common trick for an aspiring, would- 
be cowman with a maverick-hungry rope to file on 
a section of school land hardby the I O A pasture, 
build a shack, and register a brand that the I O A 
brand could be readily changed to. If he could burn 
the brand of a cow and brand a maverick or two a 
week, he would soon be getting on. It was customary 
for the I O A outfit to give some of the adjoining 
nesters a round-up. It was also customary for all 
the mavericks found on a particular man’s range dur¬ 
ing a round-up to be branded with that person’s 
brand. Some of the I O A’s rustler neighbors were 
so brazen they scoured the adjoining country for 
mavericks just before the round-up reached them, 
and drove them at night to their, range. When the 


THE I O A RANCH 


151 


round-up was held on their places, these imported 
mavericks were branded with their brands, and noth¬ 
ing could have given them a better title. 

In 1886 the I O A Company purchased 1,500 
cattle, branded Cross C -£ from Brigham Brothers 
who had been ranging for a year or two on Yellow 
House Creek just east of the present site of Lubbock. 
On Millwee’s recommendation the company dropped 
the I O A brand and adopted the Cross C. This brand 
was hard to change, and thieves gave it a wide birth. 
The I O A cattle were gradually sold off, and by 
the time I took charge of the ranch in December, 
1888, there were not many left; but the ranch con¬ 
tinued to be known as the I O A Ranch. 

After I became manager in 1888, some up-and- 
coming nesters, trying to get a start, branded a good 
many calves belonging to I O A cows on the north 
and east sides of our range. We reduced their activi¬ 
ties to a minimum by keeping a close watch. I had 
a pretty good idea who the thieves were, but was 
never able to get sufficient evidence to warrant legal 
proceedings. 

In 1890 and 1891 a band of rustlers became rather 
daring on the South Plains. They would steal a car¬ 
load of beeves from several ranches, drive the cattle 
to railroad points not generally used for shipping, 
and ship them to some place where there were no 
inspectors, and sell to local butchers. In July, 1891, 
I received a letter from a lawyer in Arkansas who 
had lived in this region for several years and was 
familiar with the brands here. He said that several 


152 


ROLLIE BURNS 


car loads of cattle from the South Plains had been 
shipped to Arkansas and sold to butchers. Among 
the cattle were several Cross C steers. I was sure that 
none of the cattle we had sold had been shipped to 
Arkansas. A short time later, several reliable persons 
in Amarillo sent me word that a certain butcher there 
had slaughtered several of our cattle. I sent the in¬ 
formation to the sheriff of Potter County, but he 
wrote me that he was unable to find out anything 
about the matter. 

I O A cattle had drifted badly during the winter 
of 1886. A thousand or more had gone as far as 
the Texas and Pacific Railroad, and some of them 
had never been brought back. In April, 1889, I sent a 
wagon, three punchers, a cook, and a wrangler to 
the Colorado, Big Spring, Midland country, to work 
the round-ups and gather our strays. Six or eight 
cowboys representing neighboring ranches went along 
to finish making up our crew. After this outfit had 
worked the round-ups along the Texas and Pacific 
Railroad, it started working back towards the home 
ranch, bringing our strays along. Even though many 
of the cattle had been strayed for three years, the 
boys brought back more cattle than originally drifted 
because of the increase. 

All honest and legitimate cowmen branded the 
offspring of a stray with the brand of the mother. 
This was invariably the practice at regular round¬ 
ups. With many ranches represented, no one would 
have dared do otherwise. Occasionally a mistake was 
made, but was corrected through a policy of com- 


THE I O A RANCH 


153 


pensation. For instance, in the jumble of a round-up 
on the Slaughter range a Cross C calf might get 
separated from its mother. The calf would be 
branded with the Long S. Later the mistake would be 
discovered. The Slaughter boss would then direct 
that a calf following a Long S cow be branded Cross 
C. In February, 1889, I received a letter from the 
manager of the X I T Ranch apprising me of the 
fact that five calves had been branded Cross C during 
their round-ups during the previous year. 

Notwithstanding the fact that this was the practice 
of honest cowmen and regular round-ups, lots of 
things could happen to strays. No outfit was as inter¬ 
ested in the welfare of a stray as its own cattle. A 
rustler could place his brand upon the calf of a stray 
cow or change the brand of a stray animal with much 
less risk than he could an animal which belonged on 
that range. Many cow outfits made a practice of kill¬ 
ing strays for beef. Somehow, stray meat was juicier, 
sweeter, and more palatable. 

While the wagon outfit was away to the south I 
had a dozen punchers “reping” for us at the round¬ 
ups to the east, north, and west. Cattle did not drift 
north in the winter, but a few usually wandered off 
in that direction during the spring, summer and fall. 
Each year several of our cattle were found as far 
north as the T Anchor range in the vicinity of Canyon 
City. 

The outside work usually lasted about two months. 
About June the wagon outfit and the individual 
“repers” got in, and then we began work on our 


154 


ROLLIE BURNS 


range. There was branding, marking, castrating and 
spaying to be done. 

We had two chuck wagons, a small two-horse 
wagon, and a large four-horse wagon. When we 
worked our own range, and did not have any stray 
punchers (cowboys “reping” for other ranches), we 
used the two-horse wagon. On outside work and when 
we had heavy work at home with several stray men, 
we used the four-horse wagon. In the rear end of 
each wagon was a chuck-box in which we carried the 
grub. By the late 80’s our grub had improved con¬ 
siderably as compared to what we had had on the 
“22” outfit a few years before. Now besides flour, 
coffee and salt, we had sugar, beans, dried fruits and 
canned goods. I never heard of canned goods being 
used on the range prior to 1884. In that year “Lum” 
Slaughter introduced them, and the use was soon 
taken up by other ranchmen. By 1889 most all of 
the larger outfits were furnishing their men with lots 
of good grub. The Square and Compass had fed un¬ 
usually well. The owners were wholesale grocers, 
and seemed to take a peculiar pleasure in sending 
down shipments of food containing fancy eatables 
as well as staples. It was not unusual for them to 
send such items as pickled pig-feet and the like. The 
I O A Company did not furnish any fancy groceries, 
but they provided plenty of staples, and for meat we 
killed a yearling every two or three days. 

Fuel for cooking and heating branding irons was a 
problem on the I O A Ranch. On the Llano and the 
Square and Compass we had used mesquite and cedar 


THE I O A RANCH 


155 


wood, but on the I O A we had to use cow-chips. It 
was harder to get a fire started with them, but when 
dry they made a hot fire. Although they gave off a 
peculiar odor when burning, this did not affect the 
food a particle. The cook always kept a quantity of 
chips in the “cooney” (a cow-hide swung hammock¬ 
like under the wagon) to keep them dry. 

We had several corrals located in various parts of 
the pasture at different windmills. If we were work¬ 
ing short-handed, we rounded-up and drove the 
cattle to a corral where we branded, marked and 
castrated. If we had plenty of help, we rounded-up 
and branded on the open range. This method was 
faster than when we had to pen the cattle. Once we 
had twenty hands at work, and held an open round¬ 
up about five miles southwest of the present site of 
Lubbock. We had two fires and two expert ropers. 
According to our tally sheets, in four hours we 
branded seven hundred and twenty calves. 

Occasionally we got an old wild, outlaw steer in 
a round-up. He would be restless, and watch for a 
chance to make a get-away. He would keep the whole 
herd nervous, and at the first opportunity he would 
make a break for the open. A puncher would prob¬ 
ably run a horse down getting him back. In the 
earlier days we had tried various schemes with these 
old outlaws j we would hobble them, and “side-line” 
them, but this was lots of trouble and was unsatis¬ 
factory. Finally someone discovered the system of 
“kneeing” these wild ones. The old outlaw would be 
roped and tied down. Then with a knife a puncher 


156 


ROLLIE BURNS 


would split the hide about an inch and a half between 
the knee and ankle on one foreleg, and cut a small 
leader or tendon. When the old steer was turned 
loose he found his running days were over. He could 
walk, or trot with a limp, but could not run. After 
that, when he was in a herd, he wanted to remain. 
This operation did not seem to hurt the animal. In 
fact, it had the opposite effect; when he got so he 
couldn’t run his flesh off any more, he usually got 
fat and could be shipped to market. 

The I O A Company had leased the Dixie Pasture, 
which lay in Lynn County, just south of our Middle 
Pasture. It had been fenced by Major Johnson and 
contained about 50,000 acres. Major Johnson lived 
on the place and kept a postoflice called Percheon at 
his house j but he never stocked the pasture. Part of 
the time he leased it to the I O A Company, and 
part of the time to other outfits. To the north of our 
East Pasture we had 50,000 acres of open range 
leased. In all, including our own range, we had over 
a third of a million acres to work. We usually started 
in the East Pasture, then worked the Middle Pasture, 
then the Dixie Pasture, and next the West Pasture. 
Then we rounded-up for the nesters on the west and 
north, and held one round-up on leased open range 
to the north of our East Pasture. Our calf crop usual¬ 
ly ran from 4,000 to 7,000. The largest number we 
ever branded in a single season was 7,500. 

While working on the Plains we frequently 
camped where there was no brush, nor anything to 
stake our night horses to. We would dig a hole in 


THE I O A RANCH 


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the ground four or five inches in diameter and eight 
or ten inches deep. At the bottom of the hole we 
would excavate to one side for about six inches. Then 
we would make on that side a little trench just the 
width of a lariat. We would tie a large knot in the 
end of the rope, and place it in the enlarged excava¬ 
tion at the bottom, and bring the rope out through 
the trench. Then we would fill the main hole and 
tramp the dirt with our boot heels. If the ground 
were not too wet, this system of staking was as good 
as a bush or a stump. 

In connection with round-ups we had the matter 
of spaying. We did not spay all the heifers, but only 
those we expected to use as beeves at the age of 
three or four. Spaying was a much more delicate 
operation than castration and required special treat¬ 
ment. The operation had to be done by a person of 
skill and training. The male calves were castrated at 
the time they were branded, and there was no par¬ 
ticular risk unless screw worms got started. But the 
female calves had to be held and driven to head¬ 
quarters, where special equipment and a pasture were 
provided. There were two methods of spaying. The 
old way was to pull the heifer up by the heels with 
a block and tackle attached to a heavv cross-beam 
supported by two tall posts. An incision about four 
inches long was made, and the “doc” ran his fingers 
in and removed the ovaries. The incision was sewed 
up and the animal was then driven into another corral 
so that she would not have to be choused around 
any more. After that it was better to keep the heifers 


158 


ROLLIE BURNS 


in a separate pasture for a few weeks until the wounds 
healed. 

A newer method was to drive the heifer into a 
shoot, fasten her securely and make an incision in the 
side. The incision was smaller, and was made in the 
side just in front of the hip bone. This method 
seemed more humane in that it did not require string¬ 
ing the animal up by the heels. 

In November, 1889, I drove my first Cross C 
beef herd to Amarillo. We intended to start on No¬ 
vember 4, but a heavy snow the night before caused 
me to postpone the drive. By November 11 the snow 
had melted enough for us to start. There were eight 
punchers in the crew besides myself and a negro cook 
and a negro wrangler. We left the Dixie Pasture 
with eighteen hundred steers, and camped the first 
night at the west mill in the Middle Pasture. On the 
twelfth we camped three miles north of the north 
mill in the Middle Pasture. On the thirteenth we got 
to Julian Lake about five miles northwest of 
Estacado. We laid over there a half day to let the 
cattle graze. On the fourteenth we drove the herd 
through the public square at Plainview, which at the 
time contained one store, one blacksmith shop, one 
three-room hotel, and a half dozen small, boxed 
residences. That night a fresh norther came up, and 
it began to snow again. 

I lost one of my spurs during the night, and next 
morning it was not to be found. We had camped near 
the house of a Mr. Pepper, and I told him about 
losing the spur. A few months later. Mr. Pepper was 


THE I O A RANCH 


159 


gathering cow-chips for fuel on the bed ground we 
used that night, and found my spur underneath a 
large chip. He returned it to me the next fall. 

The next morning we threw the herd on the trail 
and faced snow and sleet all day. By the time we got 
to North Tule Canyon that night the snow was six 
inches deep. When we got the cattle bedded down, 
they gave us no more trouble, but we nearly froze. 
Our wood supply was getting low and the cowchips 
were covered with snowj so we hoarded our fuel for 
cooking purposes. The next day we passed Tulia. 
The town had just started, and there were two houses 
there. That night we camped half way between Tulia 
and Happy. After supper one of the boys told us 
how Happy got its name. It seems that a few years 
before some cowboys came unaware upon a family 
camped near the place. The people were singing, and 
were in an exuberant mood. The punchers went their 
way and called the place Happy Draugh. The 
weather had not abated any and the cattle could find 
very little to eat. The negroes were standing the cold 
badly. It seems that a negro can’t stand the cold like 
a white man. All of us got our feet and ears frost¬ 
bitten. The next night we camped on the Frying Pan 
Ranch five miles south of Amarillo. On the evening 
of the tenth day we reached the stock-pens at 
Amarillo—only to find it would be several days be¬ 
fore we could get cars to ship the steers to Chicago. 

The cattle were hungry and lank as they had not 
had a good fill in several days, and now the prospect 
of having to hold them for another week on ground 


ROLLIE BURNS 


160 

that had been nipped clean by other herds during the 
summer before, made the situation look bad. Next 
day I ran across the manager of the L X Ranch in a 
hotel in Amarillo and told him my troubles. He told 
me to put the herd in the L X pasture which was not 
over three miles north of the stock-pens. The water 
and grass there were good, and as the snow had 
melted, the herd got well filled again. This caused 
the cattle to bring several hundred dollars more when 
they reached Chicago. When we got home I wrote 
the vice-president of the company, Mr. Wheelock, 
that I would never again drive a herd to Amarillo 
later than October. 

During the seven years I was manager of the 
I O A Ranch we drove twenty herds to Amarillo. 
Ordinarily, we drove in September and October. 
There was usually little or no surface water at that 
time of the year, and living watering places were far 
between. We would gather a herd and drive it to 
Yellow House Creek just east of where Lubbock now 
stands, and hold the cattle on the creek until about 
two o’clock in the afternoon. Then we would start 
north and drive all night. By midnight the cattle 
would begin to get thirsty, and fifteen miles before 
we could get to Running Water they could smell the 
water. Then they would begin to trot and try to run. 
I would have to put a majority of the hands in front 
to hold the cattle back. About daylight we would 
reach Running Water, a distance of fifty miles. Here 
we camped to give the cattle time to rest and get full 
of grass and water. I drove the first night for two 


THE I O A RANCH 


161 


reasons. The first night on the trail, cattle are restless 
and mill around most of the time, so I thought that 
if they were walking about, they might as well be 
applying that energy on getting to our destination; 
and the long dry lap to Running Water could best 
be made at night. 

Our next move depended upon how dry the 
weather had been. If it had been unusually dry, we 
would not expect to find water on the Middle Tule 
and would have to make the Tierra Blanca near 
Canyon City. In that case, we laid over at Running 
Water for a day and night, and started the next after¬ 
noon. It would take all night and until the next after¬ 
noon to make the sixty-five miles to Tierra Blanca. 
This lap was hard on the men, horses and cattle. We 
were all mighty tired and lank when we got to Can¬ 
yon. We camped there and made the short drive to 
Amarillo next day. When we found water in the 
Middle Tule the trip was not nearly so hard on us. 

After the railroad got there in 1887, Amarillo be¬ 
came the biggest shipping point in Texas for a num¬ 
ber of years. Cattle were driven to Amarillo from 
Brewster, Pecos and Valverde Counties. Drovers 
watered on the head of the Middle Concho, the 
Colorado, Tobacco Creek in Dawson County, the 
Yellow House near where the cemetery at Lubbock 
is now located, and followed our route on to Ama¬ 
rillo. The trail came through the Middle Pasture of 
the I O A Ranch. I had a man who devoted all his 
time during the driving season to conducting trail 
herds across our range. He met the herds at the south 


162 


ROLLIE BURNS 


gate, went with the outfit to see that none of our 
cattle got mixed with the trail herd, stood by while 
the cattle watered at the creek, and saw the herd out 
through the north gate. It usually took about a day 
to get a herd through our range. 

In the summer of 1889 a herd came by from 
South Texas. The outfit was bossed by a man by the 

name of B-, a big, muscular fellow with a heavy, 

drooping, black mustache. He wore one of the biggest 

guns I ever saw. B- wanted to camp inside the 

pasture on the creek. Our man told him he could. 
That night his outfit killed an I O A calf for beef; 

and next morning before our man got there, B- 

tore down three panels of our north fence and drove 
through. He tore the fence down rather than go a 
little farther west to the gate. When our man came in 
and reported the matter, I was furious. I rode pell- 
mell to Estacado and swore out a warrant against 

B-, and went with Deputy Sheriff Sandefer to 

serve it. Sandefer had a reputation as a daring man; 
he later died with his boots on in a duel with another 

one of his kind. When we overtook B-, and told 

him he was under arrest and would have to go with 
us to Estacado, he gave us one hard look as if he 
were deciding whether to comply or whether he 
would shoot us, and then smiled and said, “All 
right.” When we got to Estacado, we compromised 
by his paying for the damage done the fence and 
$25 for the calf. The affair delayed his herd for a 
day. I would never have said anything about the 
calf if he had not torn the fence down. Sometime 







THE I O A RANCH 


163 


later I learned that B-was a bad “hombre” down 

on the border. He had a couple of notches on his 
gun for white men, and he had gotten several Mexi¬ 
cans, but he didn’t count notches for them. The next 
year he came through with another herd and again 
camped on the creek. He rode down to headquarters 
to see me. He came up laughing and asked if I re¬ 
membered him. I told him most truthfully that I 
certainly did. I might have added that I had thought 
of him many times since I discovered who he was. 
That time he didn’t kill an I O A calf or tear down 
any fence. If he had, I am not sure I would have 
done anything about it. 

In 1893 we were driving a herd of steers to 
Amarillo. There had been a severe drouth for several 
months, and the ground was dry, cracked, and 
parched. One afternoon when we were west of Tulia 
a rain cloud came up. It poured for two hours. When 
it began to let up we noticed the ground was literally 
covered with little frogs about the size of the end of 
a lead pencil. The cloud was a local one, and we 
moved out of its range in three or four miles. The 
frogs extended as far as the rain did. That night 
the boys had a big argument about where the frogs 
came from. It seemed to be the consensus of opinion 
that the frogs had rained down from the cloud. I 
told them that if that were the case there would have 
been frogs in the pockets of our slickers, but the boys 
were not convinced. 

The matter of neighboring outfits killing each 
other’s yearlings for beef was almost a common prac- 



164 


ROLLIE BURNS 


tice. The T Anchor people on the Tierra Blanca al¬ 
ways had a wagon down in this region during the 
summer gathering strays at the round-ups. The 
wagon oufit often killed an I O A calf for meat. 
We did not have much chance to retaliate because our 
cattle seldom ever drifted north. In 1890 I was 
driving a trail herd through the T Anchor range, and 
we beefed a fat T Anchor cow. When we got to 
Amarillo I saw the manager, John Hutson, and told 
him what we had done. He said, “Ah, that’s all right, 
let’s go and get a drink.” 

From February to April each year we had to “ride 
bogs.” There were boggy places all along Yellow 
House Creek from Singer’s Store to the east line 
of East Pasture, but the worst ones were northeast 
of the present site of Lubbock. Cattle got thin during 
the winter, and by February the weakest ones did 
not have enough strength left to extricate themselves 
from the bogs. Four men rode the creek in pairs. 
When they found a cow bogged, they put a rope on 
her horns and pulled her out by the saddle horn. 
If it were a calf, they placed the rope around its 
neck. Once we found an old cow mired so deep that 
one horse could not pull her out. We placed another 
rope on her and pulled at her with two horses. When 
we got her out and removed the ropes, we found 
we had torn her horns and the top part of her skull 
loose from her head. She walked off with her horns 
flopping like a mule’s ears. When we shipped her to 
market next fall, she was slick and fat, but her horns 
were still flopping. After our experience with her, 


THE I O A RANCH 


165 


however, when we had to use a second rope on an 
animal, we placed it around the neck. During the 
seven years we pulled several thousand cattle out of 
the bogs and never killed one. 

Ranchmen lost cattle every year. A dry year would 
cause grass to be short, and the cattle would start 
the winter in poor condition. With a mild winter 
there would be losses, but a blizzard would take 
hundreds or, perhaps, thousands. Yearly losses ran 
from five to twenty per cent and averaged about ten 
per cent. Some ranches undertook to skin the animals 
that died. It was customary to give men half the 
hides to do the skinning. Two men usually worked 
together. If the skinners were honest, the business 
could be conducted with some profit to the ranch. 
But if the skinners were dishonest, the ranch would 
be better off to let the hides rot on the carcasses. An 
unprincipled skinner would not help up weak 
animals, as he was supposed to do. He would drive 
cattle into bogs and let them die. Some skinners re¬ 
sorted to killing cattle for their hides. Their method 
was to drive a nail behind the horns into the brain of 
the animal. This left no sign, and no one would 
suspect that the animal had been killed, as the head 
was not skinned. After a year or two, however, when 
the hide had slipped from the skull, the nail showed 
plainly. The I O A Ranch was one of the ranches 
that did undertake to skin its dead cattle, but we 
never let skinning contracts to anyone that we did 
not have absolute trust in. 

Prairie fires were a source of worry to ranch man- 


166 


ROLLIE BURNS 


agers. Destruction of the grass upon which cattle sub¬ 
sisted was next to the destruction of the cattle them¬ 
selves. There was danger of fires during more than 
half the year. In a year of average rainfall, grass put 
out in April, grew during May and probably June, 
became dry and brown during July and August, was 
green again after the fall rains in September and 
October, was killed by frost in November, and re¬ 
mained dry and crisp until April. For two or three 
months in the summer, and for four or five months 
in the winter, grass was in a condition to be destroyed 
by fire. During these periods all hands on the ranch 
kept a sharp lookout for grass smoke. A tiny thread 
of smoke on any part of the range would have half 
a hundred pair of eyes on various ranches watching 
it. If it increased in volume and showed the unmis¬ 
takable evidences of burning grass, it was a signal 
for all hands to drop what they were doing and start 
to the fire with all speed possible. 

The first man to reach the fire killed the nearest 
cow. Custom provided that no matter whose brand 
was on the animal, she must be sacrificed to the fire. 
They would remove the head and split the carcass 
into halves, leaving the hide on; this would make 
two drags. One man would tie his lariat to a forefoot 
and another man would tie his lariat to a hind foot 
of a drag and, pulling it between them, would ride 
along the line of fire. Two other men would take 
the other drag and go in the opposite direction. They 
rode in a gallop, and when their horses began to fag, 
other riders relieved them. The drags would blot 


THE I O A RANCH 


167 


out most of the fire, and other men following on foot 
with gunny sacks or with their slickers would beat 
out the remaining fragments. In this way, with suf¬ 
ficient help we could put out fifteen or twenty miles 
of fire within a few hours, provided the wind was 
not too high. 

We kept fire guards plowed around the I O A 
Ranch, and seldom had a fire within the pasture. 
But each year there were two or three north or west 
of us. We always turned out to help fight these fires 
lest they get to our lines and jump our fire guards. 

The two chief causes for fires are lightning and 
carelessness of punchers in dropping their matches 
after lighting a cigarette. Occasionally a fire would 
get started, however, when there was not a cloud in 
sight nor a human being within ten miles. This has 
puzzled many a plainsman. I was riding alone one 
day, and there were no clouds in view. All at once I 
noticed a small blaze in the grass about a hundred 
yards in front of me. I started toward the fire in a 
run, and st flock of curlews flew up near the fire. The 
grass was short and there was no breeze; so I had 
little trouble in getting the fire put out. Then I began 
to look for a cause. I found three or four charred 
matches. I concluded that they had been accidently 
dropped there by some one, and the curlews had ig¬ 
nited one of them by pecking it. Since then I have 
been quite sure that birds are instrumental in starting 
some fires. 

Another source of anxiety to the cattleman was 
the lobo wolf. The ranchman dreaded lobos more 


168 


ROLLIE BURNS 


than he did prairie fires. One lobo would do more 
harm than a dozen coyotes. Coyotes were death on 
sheep, and at unguarded moments might happen on 
a calf not old enough to take care of itself. They 
seemed to concentrate their ravages on the sheep in¬ 
terests, but the lobo apparently had the same disdain 
for sheep that the cowboy had for the sheepherder. 
The lobo’s palate craved beef, and he resorted to 
mutton only when beef was not to be had. 

Nothing was more exasperating to a cowman than 
to be riding across the range and come upon 
the partially devoured carcass of a fine, fat yearling. 
A grown lobo, or “loafer,” in a cattle country, would 
likely kill from ten to twenty head of cattle a year. 
When there were as many as two along they often 
killed cows for the sake of eating their unborn calves. 
A female lobo, with a den of cubs to support, always 
had a ravenous appetite. She preferred a fat calf, 
but in the absence of tenderer meat, she would tackle 
the toughest cow in the pasture. The average ranch 
probably sustained more damage from lobos than 
from cattle thieves. 

The brakes below the Caprock had many splendid 
breeding places for lobos, and the arroyos which 
drained into Yellow House Canyon were equally as 
good. There was a ridge about two miles southwest 
of the I O A headquarters we called “Loafer Ridge.” 
An old bitch made her den in the same hole every 
year. We got a litter of pups from it each year for 
three years before we caught the old wolf. 

The lobos got so busy in 1892 that for six months 


THE I O A RANCH 


169 


I employed two men who devoted all their time to 
hunting. I furnished them grub, horses and horse 
feed and gave them $20 a scalp. Lobos are so smart 
it is practically useless to try to trap for them. The 
only effective way of getting a lobo during the 90’s 
was to jump and run him down with hounds and 
horses. The two men killed twenty-five during the 
winter. 

About a year later I left the I O A headquarters 
one morning on a slow, easy-gaited horse. I came out 
of the canyon some distance east of where the Lub¬ 
bock cemetery is and saw a lobo devouring a calf in 
the open, south of the canyon. When the lobo saw 
me, he started south in a long run. I took after him 
but my horse was so slow I could barely keep in 
sight. I figured that he would eventually turn back 
towards the canyon. He gained about two miles on 
me, and finally began to veer to the east. Then I 
began to swing inside the circle to save my horse. 
As he circled, we got closer together. Finally, I got 
close enough to perceive the wolf was losing speed 
and his tongue was hanging out. By that time we 
were running parallel, due east about a hundred 
yards apart. He was so tired that my slow horse 
could keep up. I knew it would only be a matter 
of time until he would try to break past me and get 
to the canyon 5 so I decided to try my hand at roping 
him when he made his break. Suddenly he turned 
toward me in a desperate effort to get to the canyon. 
My lariat swung true and he was soon dangling at 
the end of the rope. I was so proud of my feat that 


170 


ROLLIE BURNS 


I drug him all the way to headquarters as tangible 
evidence to substantiate my story. Had he not been 
gorged on veal, he probably would have made his 
escape, but the day was too hot and dusty and the 
run too long for him to carry the ten or fifteen 
pounds of beef and make his get-away. 


CHAPTER XIII 


YARNS 

One evening in the early fall of 1891 , while on 
a round-up in the West Pasture, we got through sup¬ 
per early and had an hour or two to sit around the 
fire before we crawled into our “hot-rolls.” One of 
the first northers of the season had blown up the day 
before, and the air was so crisp that evening that the 
fire felt good. The boys kept adding cow chips, and 
the coals glowed red but never blazed much. Some 
of the punchers sprawled full length on the ground, 
some leaned back against their saddles, and some sat 
on their heels and smoked cigarettes. 

We got to talking about mirages. To cow-punchers 
who knew nothing of scientific explanations, there 
was something mysterious about mirages. All the 
boys who had been on the Plains very long had seen 
freakish things happen. I had observed cattle which 
looked twenty-five feet tall, grazing near a mirage, 
and a man riding a horse that appeared forty feet tall. 
All kinds of peculiar things have happened in a 
mirage. Men have traveled miles towards a most 
realistic lake only to find it was not there. At a time 
171 


172 


ROLLIE BURNS 


when there were no houses, fences or trees within 
forty miles, one frequently saw such things only a 
few miles away. New-comers on the Plains, unac¬ 
customed to the peculiarities of mirages, sometimes 
thought of them as good or bad omens. 

I told the boys about a mirage I saw during the 
spring of 1890. Estacado was twenty-two miles from 
the I O A headquarters and over a considerable ridge. 
The region immediately around Estacado was much 
more rolling than land commonly is in the vicinity 
of Crosby County. Approaching from the south, one 
could not see the town until he was in four or five 
miles of the place. One clear, frosty morning I 
stepped out into the back yard and saw Estacado 
elevated just above the horizon. Every house was 
visible. I could have counted the panes in the windows 
in the west and south sides of the courthouse. I could 
see horses tied to the hitching posts in front of the 
stores and blacksmith shop, and people walking about 
the place. It seemed to me that, with the aid of field 
glasses, I would have been able to recognize the 
faces of the individuals. 

In the late fall of 1890 1 witnessed another illusion 
equally strange. Our rounding-up outfit was camped 
about eight miles from the Yellow House Canyon, 
practically due south of Buffalo Springs. The morn¬ 
ing was chilly, still and frosty. When I got up be¬ 
tween daylight and sunrise, the cook called to me, 
“Boss, I thought we camped several miles from the 
Canyon last night.” 

“We did,” 


YARNS 


173 


“Look, we are right on the edge of it this morn¬ 
ing.” 

I looked, and I never beheld a more perfect 
mirage. It was so realistic it would have fooled an 
old-timer. There was the bottom of the Canyon just 
below us, water running along the creek, a few hack- 
berry trees along the edges of the water course, and 
cattle grazing along the sides of the Canyon. I saw 
familiar landmarks in the creek, trees and rocks. It 
seemed that I could have thrown a rock into the 
center of the Canyon. If I had not known that we 
were eight miles from the rim of the Canyon and 
over a slight rise, I would have sworn we were on 
the very edge. 

“Last spring,” said T Bar Dick, “while I was 
‘reping’ for our outfit over on the Syndicate range, 
I heard an old puncher tell about a mirage he had 
seen about fourteen years before when he was a buf¬ 
falo hunter. His camp was beside a lake in one of 
the wide, shallow basins on the Plains. He got lost 
from camp and rode several days looking for it. 
There was plenty of water in the lakes and buffaloes 
everywhere; so he was in no danger in that respect, 
but he had to get back to camp eventually. Each 
morning he would get his bearings the best he could 
when the sun came up, and ride all day eyeing the 
horizon in every direction for the lost camp. One 
morning after riding a couple of hours, he looked 
back and saw an unusual mirage behind him. There 
were buffaloes, wild horses, antelope, and wolves mov¬ 
ing about without touching the earth. The reality of 


174 


ROLLIE BURNS 


the scene impressed him so much he stopped to study 
it awhile. Directly he recognized his camp beside the 
lake. There were his wagon, piles of buffalo hides, 
and his horses grazing not far away. He knew 
enough about mirages to know that this was a re¬ 
flected image of his camp. He took his bearing and 
headed back toward the mirage. The illusion soon 
vanished, but he kept the direction. He rode hard all 
day, and just before sun-down he topped a ridge, 
and there was his camp. That morning when he saw 
the mirage he must have been thirty or forty miles 
away.” 

None of us who had been on the Plains for a sea¬ 
son or more doubted the truth of this story. “Shorty” 
Anderson had been stretched by the fire listening with 
rapt attention. Shorty always had a mischievous 
twinkle in his eye, and when he was up to something 
the twinkle became downright devilish. 

“Speaking of buffaloes,” he said, “I was out on the 
Plains once before any cowmen had ever ventured 
on top of the Caprock. I don’t suppose there was a 
tree, or a post, or a man in fifty miles. I rode up on 
a ridge once and saw a big buffalo bull grazing near 
a lake. He didn’t see me, and I rode back quickly and 
circled around to get on the wind side. I had only my 
Colt 45, and my horse was afraid of buffaloes. I 
thought my only chance was to leave my horse over 
the ridge and stalk the bull on foot. I figured that if 
everything worked just right I stood a chance to get 
within pistol range. I got up within thirty yards 
before the big brute sighted me. He looked at me a 


YARNS 


175 


moment and couldn’t decide whether to run at me or 
from me. In either case, I decided I had better let 
him have it. I banged away at him, and didn’t hit 
where I aimed. The first shot caused him to turn 
towards me. I let him have five more, but you can’t 
kill a buffalo with a 45 unless you hit right behind 
his shoulder blade. If he had been in doubt about 
what to do beforehand, he didn’t have any doubts 
after I put six lumps of lead under his hide. He gave 
a wild bellow and took after me. My horse was a 
mile away, and somehow I didn’t get started in that 
direction. The bull gained on me for a little bit 5 he 
was snorting and blowing and it seemed like I could 
feel his breath. But after the first hundred yards I 
began to hold my own.” 

Shorty stopped suddenly as if that was the end of 
the story, but “Red” Wheeler couldn’t leave him in 
that predicament. 

“What did you do next,” asked Red. 

“I climbed a tree.” 

“But you said there was not a tree in fifty miles.” 

“Well, you see, it was this away. It happened that 
one of those mirages like the boss has been telling 
about was right in front of me. There was a big 
hackberry tree growing by a water hole. Well, I 
climbed that mirage tree.” 

The boys bellowed, swayed, and slapped their 
knees. Most of them concluded that the joke was 
on Red, but one or two took a sheepish side glance 
at me. I was never any hand at repartee, and was 
for letting it pass. But there was a young puncher 


176 


ROLLIE BURNS 


there from Estacado. He was about five feet eight 
inches tall, slender, wiry, hot tempered and could 
ride any horse in the country. He was easy to get 
along with until you nettled him, and then it was too 
bad. The biggest, toughest rough-neck in the outfit 
would have thought twice before getting this stripling 
riled up. He had an Irish wit and a deep booming 
voice like all United States senators aspire to have. 
The boys were mighty leery about pulling anything 
on him. His name was Winford Hunt. When the 
haw-hawing died down, Winford came to my and 
Red’s rescue. 

“Now, Shorty, don’t you reckon that buffalo bull 
that was chasing you was just a mirage buffalo?” 

Then it was Shorty’s turn for the back-slapping. 

This caused the conversation to leave the question 
of mirages, and become general. George Boles told a 
story that I never have been quite sure whether it 
was truth or fiction. 

“There was a puncher named Tom Collier who 
used to work on the Square and Compass back in ’85 
when Rollie here was manager down there. Tom was 
about eighteen when he came out to start punching. 
He had run away from home on account of his step¬ 
mother. He had several smaller brothers and sisters 
whom he thought a great deal of. In the fall, he de¬ 
cided to pay them a visit. He went back to his home 
near Austin, and the folks gave him a big welcome. 
Even his step-mother seemed glad to see him. He 
entertained his family and the neighbors awhile 
showing how well he could ride a horse and throw a 


YARNS 


177 


rope. In a few days, he heard there was to be a circus 
in Austin. He had saved his wages, so he decided to 
give all his brothers and sisters a treat. None of them 
had ever been to town before, and they were all ex¬ 
cited about it. They loaded into the farm wagon and 
drove to Austin. Out in the edge of town they came 
to a blacksmith shop that was all posted over with 
pictures advertising the circus. There were clowns, 
trapeze actors doing stunts, animals with the trainers, 
and scenes from the parade. The posters announced 
in box-car letters when and where the show was to 
be, but neither Tom nor any of his brothers or 
sisters could read. When they saw the pictures they 
concluded that this must be the circus. So Tom went 
in and asked the blacksmith if they could look at 
the show. The blacksmith said certainly, to go ahead 
and look all they wanted to. Tom led the kids 
around and they looked at the pictures a long time. 
Then Tom offered to pay the blacksmith, but the 
smith wouldn’t take any pay. They got in the wagon 
and went home, thinking they had seen the circus. 
Afterwards, Tom found out his mistake, and when 
he came back to the Square and Compass next spring, 
he told me about it.” 

Pete McSpadden had not said a word as yet. He 
had worked for the Llanos in the early 80’s, but was 
now “reping” for the Slaughter outfit. Pete was a 
versatile fellow, a top hand; he could make a political 
speech, preach, and even pray on occasion. He was 
one of the best story-tellers on the range, and when 


178 


ROLLIE BURNS 


he began to sit up, we knew he was keyed up to tell 
one. 

“I was just thinking about a cyclone we had back 
in ’81. I was working for the Llanos, and we had a 
puncher in the outfit by the name of Sam Golden. 
Sam was one of the best hands I ever saw. He would 
do anything on a ranch from cooking sour-dough 
and building corrals to acting as top-rope man at the 
round-ups. He was born in Tennessee, but was raised 
near Uvalde, Texas. He joined our outfit in 1880, 
a tall, rough, handsome fellow with a pair of sharp, 
clear eyes that bespoke veracity. 

“We had just rounded-up a big bunch of cattle 
about where Post City is now located. There were 
about twenty hands with the outfit, and we were 
working hard, for a cloud was gathering back on the 
Plains to the northwest, and we wanted to get the 
branding done before the cloud-bank came up. The 
cattle became more and more restless. They seemed 
to sense something in the air. Before we even got the 
irons hot, we saw it was useless to start branding. The 
cattle were milling and bawling and ready to stam¬ 
pede at the drop of a hat. The cloud was getting a 
move on. Lightning was doing zig-zags just beyond 
the rim of the Caprock, and thunder was making a 
continuous roll. The boss hollered to all the boys to 
get their slickers on and to get ready to hold the 
herd. By the time we did that, the cloud was sweep¬ 
ing down off the Caprock. The cattle were sniffing 
the wind and showing the whites of their eyes. We 
knew they were all set for a stampede. Most of the 


YARNS 


179 


boys were on the east side of the herd so as to hold 
the critters as long as they could, and then if the 
cattle did stampede, the boys would be in front so 
they could eventually turn the herd. 

“About the time the cloud came off the.Caprock, 
we noticed a small funnel-shaped cloud moving just 
in front. It was coming straight at us, and the tail 
was swooping down and touching the ground every 
once and awhile. It hit our chuck wagon and took 
it up in the air. About that time the cattle broke, and 
we didn’t have time to watch the cyclone any more. 
When the herd started, Sam Golden was on the west 
side of the cattle. He rode like fury behind the herd 
for a half mile, and then the cyclone picked him and 
his horse up, carried them over in front of the herd 
and set them down as gently as could be. While up in 
the air, however, Sam had lost his hat and his quirt. 
He helped turn the herd in about three miles and got 
the cattle to milling. In thirty minutes the storm was 
over, and the boys started back with the cattle. When 
they got to the place where Sam had lost his hat, he 
looked up and saw it about a hundred yards in the air 
slowly settling to earth. He maneuvered his horse 
around so that the hat came down on his head with 
the point in front. 

“Sam kept looking up for his quirt. How it had 
gotten away was a mystery. He had it fastened to the 
horn of his saddle with a leather string, and the quirt, 
string, and all had disappeared. But Sam looked in 
vain for the quirt, for it didn’t come down. I worked 
with Sam in the vicinity several times after that, and 


180 


ROLLIE BURNS 


every time he passed that spot, he would stop and 
look up. He was still expecting his quirt to come 
down.” 

Uncle Tang Martin, who was “reping” for the 
X I T people, took a long-range shot at the fire with 
a squirt of tobacco juice, arid said, “Well, I’ve never 
had much close-up experience with cyclones, but 
when I was a boy back in Alabama, I was a great 
athlete. I wasn’t so good at running, but I was a 
champion when it came to jumping. I believe I still 
hold a world’s record for the standing jump.” 

“How far could you jump, Uncle Tang?” asked 
Shorty. 

“Fifty-six feet.” 

Shorty whistled, and the rest of us wanted to 
whistle. Uncle Tang let it soak for about a minute, 
and then he went on, “Well, you see, my pa was 
after me with a hay-rake. I jumped one foot, and 
landed in a well fifty-five feet deep.” 

When the air cleared, Uncle Tang told us some 
more about the athletic traits of his family. 

“My pa was a strong man. I dare say he was the 
stoutest person in the state. They were having a con¬ 
test at a county fair once to see how much the various * 
contestants could carry on their backs. They were 
carrying buckshot. Pa had seven bushels on his back, 
and told them to put on some more. They kept piling 
more and more shot on pa’s back until he bogged 
down knee deep through the rock pavement.” 

Everyone was quiet for a few minutes, and then 
Winford Hunt said, “I had a ghost experience about 


YARNS 


181 


two years ago, but I hesitate to tell about it now after 
these wild cyclone and jumping yarns.” 

“Ah, go ahead, kid, it don’t make any difference 
whether it’s so or not,” said Uncle Tang. 

“It’s so, anyway, whether you believe it or not. 
After all, it doesn’t matter, I suppose, who believes 
it. I want to say in the beginning that I am not a per¬ 
son to have presentiments. I have a sister who takes 
stock in such things, but none of that for me. 

“It was in November, 1889. I was just an over¬ 
grown boy in the Quaker colony at Estacado. My 
father was the only physician in three or four coun¬ 
ties and was away from home most of the time mak¬ 
ing long distance medical calls. We had about a hun¬ 
dred head of cattle, and it was my business to look 
after the stock. There were no fences, and cold rains 
caused the cattle to drift away. We had just had three 
days of continuous rains. The ground was soaked so 
badly a horse would sink almost to his fetlocks walk¬ 
ing across the prairie. On the fourth day the rain 
stopped, but a misty fog hung over the ground. You 
couldn’t see a cow over a quarter of a mile. 

“I wanted to start out to find the cattle. There was 
danger of a hard freeze, and a blizzard would have 
caused the cattle to drift to kingdom come. Mother 
did not want me to start; she was afraid I would get 
lost on the prairie. My older brother thought I ought 
to go, so together we convinced mother, and I saddled 
my pony and started. My horse’s name was Richard 
Coeur de Lion, but I called him Dick for short. I 
suppose that must indicate the kind of literature I was 


182 


ROLLIE BURNS 


reading then. Dick was a great pony; I could catch 
him anywhere. He would come to me as far as he 
could hear me call, and he was the best cow pony 
in the colony. He could turn on a dime, and all you 
had to do was to show him which cow you wanted. 
Dick and I had been doing the reping for the colony 
at neighboring round-ups for a couple of years. I had 
told mother that morning that you couldn’t lose Dick, 
and that was the winning argument. 

“We were gone all day. Along in the morning it 
had started raining again, and we got soaked. In the 
late afternoon the clouds lifted a little, and looked 
as if they might drift over. I was cold, hungry, and 
disappointed, for I had not found the cattle. So I 
started home. It was not long before the clouds be¬ 
gan to thicken again, and it began to lighten and 
thunder. 

“There was an old bachelor who lived about five 
miles from Estacado. His name was John White. He 
had some cattle, four sections of land fenced, and 
lived in a dugout. His dugout was made in the con¬ 
ventional way. A hole was excavated about four feet 
deep. The walls were built up about three feet with 
sod. A ridge-pole was placed across the center, and 
smaller poles cross-ways. On these were placed brush, 
a layer of sod, and then a layer of earth. 

“I struck John White’s east fence and turned 
south, for I knew that would take me directly to¬ 
wards home. It was just getting dusk when I got 
to John’s dugout. The clouds had settled down, and 
I couldn’t see anything except when it lightened. I 


YARNS 


183 


noticed that John’s cows were bawling as if they had 
not been fed. As I neared the place Dick began to 
prance, and act as if he were greatly agitated about 
something. He seldom acted that way, and I knew he 
wasn’t just putting on, for he had been going hard 
all day and was dog tired. By the time we got oppo¬ 
site the dugout, Dick was rearing up and snorting. 
I was trying to quiet him when a big flash of light¬ 
ning came, and I saw John White standing by the 
windmill not twenty yards away. I hollered at him 
and waved my hand. Dick shied and started to run. 
I had to give him all my attention for a moment. 
We were about seventy-five yards down the fence 
when the next flash came. Again I saw John White 
standing about twenty yards slightly to one side, this 
time on the opposite side of the fence. I was sure it 
was he, and hollered and waved my hand again. Dick 
shied and made tracks. As we hurried on I kept won¬ 
dering how John could have gotten the seventy-five 
yards or more and crossed over the fence as quickly 
as we did, when Dick was running. 

“I got home about an hour later, and then had 
nine cows to feed and milk. It was nine o’clock before 
I got in for supper. Mother had the food hot, and 
we were sitting in the old kitchen a little later when 
there was a sharp knock at the door. Mother opened 
it, and a neighbor of John White’s rushed in. He 
was frightened, and blear-eyed. He had gone to 
John’s dugout a short time after I had passed and 
found John dead. The neighbor had then come pell- 
mell for father. Father was away at the time, but 


184 


ROLLIE BURNS 


came in within an hour and started immediately to 
John’s place. 

“The rain had caused the roof to cave in on John 
while he was asleep the night before. The ridge¬ 
pole had struck him over the heart and caved his 
chest in. The rain had washed dirt down all over 
him except his face. That was washed clean and 
had a pale, ghostly look. Father estimated that he 
had been dead fifteen or eighteen hours when I 
passed the place at dusk. 

“The strange part of it all was the fact I didn’t 
know he was dead until sometime after I had seen his 
ghost twice. I had never dreamed of his being dead, 
and at the time I was as sure I saw him as I am sure 
I am living right now.” 

This story, having a ring of reality to it, and 
dealing with ghosts and death, caused the punchers 
to quiet down. No one felt in the mood to tell anoth¬ 
er, and soon the boys began to slip off one at a time 
and crawl into their “hot-rolls”. 


CHAPTER XIV 

CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 

One Sunday soon after we came to the I O A 
Ranch in 1888, 1 took my wife and children to Esta- 
cado to church. The Quaker Colony had been estab¬ 
lished there in 1878 by Paris Cox. It took us two 
hours to drive the twenty-two miles in a two-horse 
buckboard. The drive reminded me of the time I 
had first encountered the Quakers in 1881. While 
working for the “ 22 ” outfit, two other punchers and 
I were riding up the bed of Salt Fork near the Cap r 
rock one day when we heard singing. We rounded a 
turn in the river and saw about a dozen women and 
children gathering wild plums. They were singing 
religious hymns; and so intent were they on their 
singing and plum-gathering, they did not see us until 
were were within fifty yards of them. When one of 
them saw us, she screamed, and then they all 
screamed and scattered among the bushes like quail. 
We rode on by without trying to round any of them 
up 5 and then we got to wondering why they acted 
so scary. One of the punchers ’lowed that they must 
have thought we were Indians. When we came to 
185 


186 


ROLLIE BURNS 


think it out we did look pretty wild. We had not 
shaved or had our hair cut for months, and had been 
living in a dugout besides. 

But to return to 1888 , when we got to Estacado, 
we found practically the entire community assem¬ 
bled in the Quaker Church. The house was built of 
boxing plank and was about sixteen by twenty feet. 
The benches were crude and made of plank. A big 
box stove in the middle of the room burned wood 
and cowchips. The wood had to be hauled from 
Blanco Canyon or the breaks below the Caprock. 
When we went in, the Quakers were sitting around 
with their hats on, not saying anything. Most of them 
seemed to be in a deep, brown study, but some of 
the less devout interrupted their spiritual meditations 
long enough to look us over. I supposed they were 
just waiting for the preacher to come, or something. 
In a few moments, without any announcement, some¬ 
one started a song and the others joined in. When the 
song was over they all hushed again, and I thought 
the preacher would surely be along pretty soon. In 
a few minutes some old gentleman without warning 
started praying. He prayed awhile and stopped, and 
everything got quiet again. Then somebody else 
started a song. After that, all was quiet for awhile, 
and then one of the older men got up abruptly and 
read from the Bible, and commented for a minute or 
two on what he had read. When he got up, I thought 
he was the preacher, but when he sat down we didn’t 
seem to be any farther along than before. Except for 
a cough and someone’s scraping his feet on the floor 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


187 


there was not a sound for five minutes, when a 
woman started a song in a rather high, shaky voice. 
Another quiet spell, Scripture reading, quiet, prayer, 
quiet, Scripture reading, quiet, song, quiet, and then 
someone announced the service was over. I kept look¬ 
ing for the preacher to turn up until the very last, 
but afterwards found out they didn’t have a preacher 
in the sense that most Protestant churches do. 

After the service the Quakers were very friendly 
with us, and one family urged us to go home with 
them for dinner. We went and found that Quakers 
lived pretty well—fried chicken, gravy, biscuits, ham, 
wild plum preserves, and fried pies. We learned that 
the Quakers had come to the Plains ten years before 
with high hopes, but as the years passed, they had be¬ 
come more and more discouraged. Attempting to 
farm so far from a railroad was slow going. They 
raised good crops, but to market anything except a 
small part of what they raised was out of the ques¬ 
tion. 

During the next few years we had many pleasant 
contacts with the Quakers. A lot of people thought 
they were queer, and wouldn’t have anything to do 
with them 5 but that was because they never did get 
acquainted. All the Quakers I knew were splendid 
citizens. After the colony broke up a few years later, 
some of them went back to Illinois and Indiana, and 
others scattered on the Plains and became Metho¬ 
dists. 

In 1889 the directors of the I O A Ranch decided 
to try farming in connection with the ranch. The vice- 


188 


ROLLIE BURNS 


president wrote, asking me what I thought of rais¬ 
ing five hundred to a thousand acres of sorghum to 
feed steers during the winter so as to have them fat 
in the spring and sell at high prices. I replied that I 
did not think it was practical, but the directors were 
disposed to have a sorghum field put in, anyway. 
They placed Frank Wheelock in charge of the farm¬ 
ing operations. He broke two hundred and fifty acres 
south of the Canyon and broadcast the sorghum field. 
He sowed three bushels to the acre and the seed 
cost two dollars and a half a bushel. The seed alone 
amounted to $7.50 an acre as the initial expense. The 
sorghum grew very well, and Wheelock cut it with 
a mowing machine. But the experiment was too cost¬ 
ly to be practical. The company tried raising sorghum 
one more year, and then gave it up as a failure. 

I was interested in knowing whether or not cotton 
would grow on the Plains. When I came to the I O A 
Ranch in December, 1888, I found some cotton seed 
which the manager before me had hauled from Colo¬ 
rado City to feed to his milch cow. I put enough of 
the seed aside to plant a patch in the spring. In May, 
1889, I planted three acres. I did not cultivate or 
thin the plants in anyway. Neither did I gather the 
cotton, but I judged the patch made over a half bale 
to the acre. I predicted then that some day the South 
Plains would be a great cotton country; but until a 
railroad was built cotton farming would not be prac¬ 
tical. 

In 1892 I unthoughtedly introduced crab-grass 
into Lubbock County. I bought some fruit trees from 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


189 


the Munson Nursery at Denison, and set them out at 
a place I was improving for myself about two miles 
north of the I O A headquarters. The trees had 
crab-grass around the roots. When I planted the trees 
I threw the grass out in the garden. In the spring it 
took root and began to spread. I was busy that year 
and paid little attention to the grass. It matured, 
and the seed was spread by the cattle. In a few years 
there was crab-grass all over the country. 

We experimented from time to time in a small way 
with various kinds of foraging plants. In 1892 we 
tried meadow oat grass, but found it was not adapt¬ 
able. We tried millet, rye and other winter crops, but 
with machinery dear, and the cost of farming opera¬ 
tions high, we found that the only economical way to 
raise cattle during the 90’s was on native grass. 

Orchards were not practical, because freezes in the 
spring killed the fruit on an average of two years 
out of three, and the life cycle of fruit trees was 
short. A person was lucky if he got one or two fruit 
crops before the trees died. Often the fruit that a 
tree would yield would not pay the original cost of 
the tree. 

In the summer of 1889 my wife was at headquar¬ 
ters alone with the children one day. She happened to 
look out of a window and saw a half dozen Indians 
coming down the Canyon from the west. They were 
the first Indians my wife had ever seen, but she had 
grown up hardby the frontier and had heard scores 
of stories about Indians. Her first thought when she 
saw these, riding down the trail bare-headed and in 


190 


ROLLIE BURNS 


single file, was that they were bent on plunder and 
murder. She got the children in the house in a hurry 
and locked the door. Then she watched the Indians 
through the window. When her first alarm subsided, 
she began to notice that they did not act as if they 
were on a scalping expedition. Their horses were poor 
and jaded, and the Indians drew up like travelers 
do before a strange house when they want some¬ 
thing. I rode in sight about that time, and the In¬ 
dians saw me and waited. Two or three could speak 
broken English. It seemed that they belonged on a 
reservation in New Mexico and were going to visit 
some of their kinsmen on a reservation in Indian 
Territory. They had been through this country sev¬ 
eral times before and knew the landmarks. They 
wanted some sugar and coffee, which I gave them, 
and they trailed on down the Canyon. Two or three 
of this party, together with some others, came by the 
following summer, and again in 1891. The last party 
seemed pretty well discouraged by so much barbed 
wire being strung over the country. I suppose that 
was the reason they never came through again. 

In the summer of 1890 we had some fence-cutting 
trouble. Several nesters with small herds of cattle 
were located north of the I O A range. They would 
not go to the expense of putting down wells and 
erecting windmills. They depended on the lakes until 
they dried up, and then they were up against it. The 
easiest thing to do was to cut stretches of our fence, 
and let their cattle come to Yellow House Creek or 
to our windmills. We knew pretty well who the 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


191 


fence-cutters were, but we were unable to catch them 
in the act. I wrote Governor Sayers about the trouble, 
and he authorized me to offer an executive reward 
for indictable information concerning the fence-cut¬ 
ters. When I let it be known that the governor was 
offering a reward, the trouble ceased. 

Our relations with our other neighbors were more 
pleasant. To the south in Lynn County was the T 
Bar Ranch, owned by the Tahoka Cattle Company. 
Colonel W. C. Young was interested in it; J. T. Lof¬ 
ton was secretary, and C. O. Edwards was a principal 
stockholder. Later, Edwards came to own all the 
ranch. 

To the southwest was the NUN Ranch. John 
Nunn had moved to Scurry County with a small herd 
of cattle during the late 70’s. He kept the increase, 
and by 1885 he had fifteen or twenty thousand head. 
Then he moved to Terry County, and located a few 
miles southeast of where Meadow was later estab¬ 
lished. When cattle prices went down in 1885, 1886, 
and 1887, he held his cattle and started borrowing 
money. At the same time he was at a big expense get¬ 
ting his land watered. All the while the rustlers were 
working him heavy. By 1890 he was broke and his 
creditors took over his land and cattle. They kept the 
NUN brand until the ranch was settled up. 

To the east, occupying the southwest corner of 
Crosby County,was the Three H, H Hie Ranch, 
owned by the St. Louis Cattle Company. The head¬ 
quarters was on Yellow House Creek, about seven 
miles from the west line of Crosby County. Most of 


192 


ROLLIE BURNS 


the stock was owned by Charles Schmieding of St. 
Louis, and John T. Beal was manager. 

The few differences we had with these ranches 
were settled amicably by arbitration. Each party 
would select an arbitrator and the two arbitrators 
would select a third. The three made an award which 
was always accepted. This means of judicature was 
swift and inexpensive. It obliterated slow and costly 
court proceedings. A cow could be dead with old age 
before a court decision could usually be had, and the 
expense would be greater than the value of the ani¬ 
mal. 

Occasionally our strays would get in a trail herd 
being shipped to market. We frequently recovered 
the money these strays sold for through the North¬ 
west Texas Stock Raisers’ Association. The Associa¬ 
tion kept inspectors at all the major market points 
to watch for strays belonging to members of the 
Association. For instance, in 1889, three of our steers 
arrived in St. Louis with a Two Buckle shipment. 
The association’s inspector claimed the steers for 
the I O A Company, and we received the money 
through the Association. Membership in the Associa¬ 
tion cost the I O A Ranch about twenty-five dollars 
a year, and some years the amount of cattle recovered 
did not exceed that amount. The main value of the 
Association, however, lay in prevention rather than 
recovery. Had it not been in existence, the possibili¬ 
ties for shipping other people’s strays would have 
been increased, and our losses much greater. 

One day in the spring of 1891 I was riding on the 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


193 


Plains and came to a bundle of snakes. It was about 
the size of a bushel measure, all coiling and writh¬ 
ing. After watching awhile, I observed there were two 
tails and one head. I could not understand it. I fired 
three shots into the bundle, and then got a stick and 
began to untwist the pile of snakes. I found that 
a large bull snake was trying to swallow a rattle¬ 
snake of equal size and had him about half down. 
After that I never killed a bull snake unless he was 
near my chicken house. 

During the 80’s and 90’s we frequently saw a little 
animal on the Plains called a “swift”. It was about 
the size of a maltese cat, though its body was a little 
longer. It belonged to the fox family and had a 
brownish color. It could outrun a jack rabbit. I have 
chased swifts on horses many times, but was able to 
run one down only once. On that occasion there were 
four of us cowboys all mounted on fresh horses. By 
taking shortcuts we finally got it. The ground was 
hard and dry, and its feet were torn and bleeding. 
Some of its toe nails were hanging loose. If the 
ground had been soft I am sure we would never 
have outrun it. 

There were lots of antelope on the Plains as late 
as 1890. My twenty years of observation of antelope 
convinced me that the young are born practically at 
the same time each spring. I never saw an antelope 
fawn before May 1 and I never saw one newly born 
after May 10. It seemed that all the borning took 
place within a week or so. 

A tame antelope exhibits some of the same tern- 


194 


ROLLIE BURNS 


peramental characteristics that a goat does. I caught 
a fawn once and took it to headquarters on the I O A 
Ranch as a pet for the children. It made an interest¬ 
ing pet when it was young, but as it grew up it be¬ 
came more and more mischievous until it became a 
nuisance. Everytime one of the children would get 
out in the yard, the antelope would slip up behind 
and butt the child over, and then he would scamper 
off in great glee. We finally had to kill him. 

In January, 1890, we had a big snow storm which 
continued for thirty-six hours, covering the ground 
six inches deep. During the storm the cattle in the 
west pasture drifted into a pocket in the fence about 
three miles south of Singer’s Store. As soon as the 
storm subsided I took several hands to drive the cat¬ 
tle back to the canyon where they would have more 
shelter. We found about 5,000 cattle and 3,000 ante¬ 
lope lodged in the pocket. The driving turned out to 
be a bigger job than we anticipated, for all the ante¬ 
lope were snow-blind, and their eyes were frozen 
over with snow. It took two days to drive the cattle 
three miles because of the antelope. They were in 
their way. We would kick them and whip them with 
our quirts, but to no avail. We had to weave in and 
out among them and separate the cattle from them 
the best we could. 

In the spring of 1890 a real estate man by the 
name of W. E. Rayner came to Lubbock County and 
began to talk about laying off a townsite and estab¬ 
lishing a county seat. None of us had thought about 
such a thing up to that time. There, was not a town 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


195 


in the county, and only one store. George W. Singer 
was still operating his store in Yellow House Can¬ 
yon. His first store was burned in 1886. A demented 
Mexican had set it afire one day while Singer was 
away. Singer returned just as the Mexican was flee¬ 
ing from the building. He killed the Mexican, but 
was unable to save the store. Singer then hauled lum¬ 
ber from Colorado City and built another store about 
half a mile down the Canyon from his old site. 

Rayner was a professional town promoter. He had 
located a townsite which he hoped to make the coun¬ 
ty seat of Stonewall County, named the town after 
himself, built a courthouse which he intended to sell 
to the county, and put on a lot sale. Nobody came to 
buy, and a rival town, Aspermont, got the county 
seat. Mr. Rayner, left with a courthouse on his hands, 
was not put out. He started looking for new county 
seats to locate, and settled on Lubbock County. He 
figured that a town located near the middle of the 
county would have no trouble getting the county seat, 
especially if it were the only town in the county. 

He selected the section of land which now lies 
directly north of the Tech Campus, surveyed a town- 
site, and named it Monterey. He wanted the good 
will of some of the local citizens, and offered Frank 
(F. E.) Wheelock and myself ten lots each if we 
would support him in his effort to get the county 
seat at Monterey. Wheelock and I had been watching 
his activity, and had decided that the matter of start¬ 
ing a town was not so involved. We told him our 
support would cost a great deal more than ten lots 


196 


ROLLIE BURNS 


apiece. He got mulish and said that was all he would 
give. Wheelock and I decided to start a town of our 
own. 

We purchased the section of land which lies just 
east of the Plainview highway and north of the 
Canyon. We saw it was going to take more money 
than we had to launch the town, so I went to Fort 
Worth and interested John T. Lofton and James 
Harrison in the project. They furnished the money 
and we four became equal partners. We laid out the 
townsite and named it Lubbock, after Captain Thom¬ 
as S. Lubbock of Texas Revolutionary fame. We 
built the Nicolette Hotel and a store building, dug a 
well, and erected a windmill. In the meanwhile we 
were lining up the voters in the county to vote for 
Lubbock for the county seat. 

The outlook was getting pretty gloomy for Ray- 
ner. He began to have visions of another town with¬ 
out inhabitants or a county seat. In December, 1890, 
he came to us with a proposition for a compromise. 
We dickered around for awhile and finally came to 
an understanding. We agreed to purchase a section 
of land on the south side of the Canyon equidistant 
from our town and Rayner’s town. The new town 
was to be laid out on the same plan as Monterey, but 
was to have the name of Lubbock. Rayner took the 
north half of the townsite, and Lofton, Harrison, 
Wheelock and I took the south half. 

J. D. Caldwell was the first merchant to open a 
store in the new Lubbock, and a short time later G. 
W. Singer moved up from the Canyon. During Janu- 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


197 


ary and February, 1891, we were busy moving the 
town. We had to tear the hotel down to get it across 
the canyon. Lofton and Rayner put on a publicity 
campaign, and in the spring held a lot sale. By June 
there were a dozen families living in the town, and 
on July 21 Bob Rodgers started the Lubbock Leader. 
Bob was a natural-born booster, and called on the 
rest of us to support his paper while he whooped it 
up for the town. Wheelock, on behalf of the town- 
site company, took a hundred and fifty subscriptions, 
I took fifty, and every puncher on the I O A Ranch 
took three each. We had made Wheelock manager 
of our half of the townsite, because Lofton, Harri¬ 
son, and I had no time to devote to it. Wheelock soon 
began to receive letters from all parts of the United 
States, wanting to know about the country. 

A man by the name of J. P. Lewis had started a 
saloon in Monterey (everybody called it Ray Town), 
and when we compromised on the present site of 
Lubbock, Lewis moved his saloon. I soon saw that a 
saloon within eight miles of the ranch headquarters 
was not going to add anything to the morale of the 
hands. I had drunk my part of the whiskey, but I 
had always made a point of keeping whiskey and 
business separated. I had never allowed the punchers 
to keep liquor on the ranch. After Lewis opened his 
saloon in Lubbock, some of the boys would slip off 
at every opportunity and get tanked up. When I 
sent them to the West Pasture, they would ride sev¬ 
eral miles out of their way to get a drink of whiskey. 
For fifteen to twenty-five cowboys to kill time in 


198 


ROLL1E BURNS 


that way meant a big outlay for the company, so I 
decided to get rid of the saloon. I circulated a local 
option petition, and got enough signers to carry it, as 
most of the newcomers were prohibitionists. In that 
way Lubbock went dry within three months after the 
town started. I gave Lewis a j ob on the ranch and he 
made a good hand. 

With a town in the county, I began buying a part 
of the supplies for the I O A Ranch from local mer¬ 
chants. Notwithstanding goods had to be hauled 
from Colorado City, a distance of one hundred and 
thirty miles, or from Amarillo, a little more than a 
hundred and thirty miles, prices in Lubbock were not 
as high as one might think. Bacon sold at ten cents 
a pound j potatoes, at two and a half cents $ syrup, 
at sixty cents a gallon; flour, at $2.60 a hundred; 
onions, at three cents a pound; stove pipe, at twenty 
cents a joint j nails, at six cents a pound; pecans, at 
ten cents a pound; apples, at fifteen cents a dozen, 
and oranges at twenty cents a dozen. 

When a postofRce was established at Lubbock in 
1891, the mail came from Colorado City three times 
a week. A postoflice had been established at Singer’s 
Store in 1884, but then the mail was brought out 
only once a week. 

No sooner had we got a town in Lubbock County 
than we started talking about a railroad. Our talk 
did not amount to much until April, 1893, when a 
rumor spread through the county to the effect that 
the Texas Central was planning to build on north¬ 
west from Albany. Then we got busy. We had sev- 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


199 


eral mass meetings at the livery stable in Lubbock. 
The big question was how we could induce the rail¬ 
road company to build to Lubbock. It was evident that 
Plainview, Estacado, and Espuela on the Spur Ranch 
in Dickens County would be contenders for the road. 
Should we cooperate with these towns or go at it 
alone? We eliminated Plainview from the coopera¬ 
tive idea at once on the grounds that the Central 
would not likely build to both places. If we got the 
road, Plainview wouldn’t; if Plainview got it, we 
wouldn’t. So it was clear that we would have to fight 
Plainview. But Estacado and Espuela were different. 
It was possible that the Central could be induced to 
come by both places and on to Lubbock. So we de¬ 
cided to offer to cooperate with them. I was selected 
to find out about Espuela. I wrote Fred Horsbrugh, 
manager of the Spur Ranch and chief promoter of 
Espuela. Horsbrugh replied that he understood that 
the Central did not intend to build to any existing 
towns, but purposely intended to miss them so that 
the railroad company could establish its own towns 
and clean up a lot of money on the sales. In that case 
the existing towns would be killed, and the people 
would move to the new railroad towns. That sounded 
mighty discouraging, but caused Lubbock to become 
even more determined to get a railroad, as a matter 
of self-preservation. 

The next mass meeting voted to send Judge W. D. 
Crump and myself to Waco to interview the officials 
of the Texas Central. The meeting made up $35 to 
pay our expenses. We drove to Albany in a buggy, 


200 


ROLLIE BURNS 


put our horses in a livery stable, and went to Waco 
on the train. We put up at the Royal Hotel and 
called on Colonel Hamilton, the president of the 
Central. We couldn’t see him that day, but were told 
to be back next day. When we got an audience, he 
was very nice to us and kept us for two or three 
hours, asking a thousand and one questions about the 
country. Then he told us we were too early, as the 
Central did not intend to do any more building for at 
least two years. When we got home, and made our 
report, the railroad fever died down for awhile, but 
not for long. 

The I O A Ranch, like its neighbors, had trouble 
in keeping an adequate number of saddle horses. 
About two hundred and fifty were required for regu¬ 
lar work. A horse was not fit for cow work until he 
was four years old. Then after eight or ten years of 
service, he would have to be replaced. In 1887 the 
company had purchased one hundred mares with the 
intention of raising its own horses. These stock mares 
were raised in East Texas and were gentle enough 
when they were brought out; but mustangs soon got 
with them, and they became wild. Everytime we 
wanted to get them corralled, we had to run them 
down. The outcome was so unsatisfactory that in 
1889 the directors of the company sent instructions 
for us to trade the mares for saddle horses, but no 
one cared to trade. A number of other ranches at¬ 
tempted to raise their own saddle horses during the 
80’s, but it did not take them long to discover 
that it was cheaper to buy their saddle horses out- 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


201 


right from regular horse ranches farther east. The 
Plains region was not adapted to horse raising, es¬ 
pecially as long as there were mustangs in the coun¬ 
try. 

The mustangs in the I O A pasture not only gave 
trouble in regard to the stock mares, but, from time 
to time, lured away our saddle horses. In the spring 
of 1889 we were holding a round-up on the spot 
where Lubbock now stands. One morning the wrang¬ 
ler reported a big sorrel missing from the remuda. I 
had an idea that he had gotten off with the mustangs. 
As soon as I got the boys at work on the round-up, I 
started to look for the sorrel. In about five miles I 
came in sight of a bunch of mustangs and some dis¬ 
tance to one side was the sorrel. When a tame horse 
attempts to j oin a bunch of wild horses, the mustangs 
will not let him come close for a day or two. I sup¬ 
pose they try to prove him before they initiate him, 
as it were. As soon as the mustangs sighted me, they 
started to run, and the sorrel fell in about a hundred 
yards behind. I put my horse at full speed in an 
effort to head him off. If he got by me, it meant I 
might have to run him for days. When I saw I 
couldn’t head him off, I drew my .45 and shot at 
him. The bullet hit him on the jaw and, for some 
reason, did little damage. The instant he was hit the 
horse whirled around and ran like blazes back to 
the round-up ground and joined the remuda. The 
scar from the spent bullet stayed on his jaw as long 
as he lived. 

There were two bunches of mustangs in our pas- 


202 


ROLLIE BURNS 


ture. One bunch ranged about where Tech Campus 
is now, and the other, eight or ten miles farther 
south. There were about twenty wild horses in each 
group. In the summer of 1889 I decided to rid the 
range of these troublesome mustangs. I divided the 
boys into two groups, had each man mount a good 
horse, and sent a group after each bunch of horses. 
The boys were to kill every mustang. 

There were two men along who rode wild and 
reckless. They were always hard on the horses they 
rode, and on a chase like this the chances were they 
would well-nigh kill their mounts. We had two old 
outlaw horses which I did not care if they did ride 
to death. I gave one outlaw to each man and told 
them to ride as hard as they wanted to. One man 
went with one group of punchers, and the other went 
with the other group. About eleven o’clock that day, 
about the same minute as well as we could ascertain, 
both horses dropped dead while being ridden at full 
speed 5 at the time they were about fifteen miles apart. 
Neither rider was hurt in the fall. Before night the 
boys had slaughtered every mustang in the pasture. 

Getting rid of old, broken-down saddle horses was 
another problem for the ranch. Sometimes we were 
able to sell them to horse buyers who shipped them 
to East Texas or Louisiana and sold them to cotton 
farmers. In 1893 I decided to speculate a little in 
broken-down saddle horses. I purchased thirty head 
from the company at $20 each. I drove the herd to 
Colorado City and shipped them to my brother-in- 
law in Colbert, Indian Territory. He tried to sell 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


203 


them and couldn’t. Finally he traded them for thirty 
jersey cows, and shipped them to Amarillo. I held 
the cows there for three weeks, but people in the 
Panhandle were not interested in jersey cattle in 
1893. At last, I traded them for thirty lots on Polk 
Street. I kept the lots for a couple of years and sold 
them for $7.50 apiece. I understand that some of 
these lots have sold in recent years for several thou¬ 
sand dollars each. In all, I lost several hundred dol¬ 
lars, besides a lot of time, but I got some good ex¬ 
perience in horse-trading. 

During 1889 and 1890, a great many farmers were 
preempting school lands on the Plains, fencing their 
places, building dugouts or small boxed houses, and 
plowing fields. They were lucky if they got a good 
crop before a series of drouthy years began in 1891. 
That year was so dry that only a small crop was 
made. The next year was worse, practically nothing 
being raised. The third year of the drouth, 1893, 
was a total failure. More than half the farmers 
starved out and had to leave the country. The drouth 
hung on until mid-summer, 1894. Cattlemen were 
suffering, but their woes were small compared with 
the farmers who had no reserve and no credit. 

In the summer of 1894 I drove to Amarillo in a 
two-horse buggy on business. About the time I ar¬ 
rived it started raining. For twenty-four hours it 
poured down in sheets. As soon as the clouds cleared 
away I prepared to start home. I had run across the 
editor of the Lubbock newspaper in Amarillo, and 
he wanted to ride back to Lubbock with me. The 


204 


ROLLIE BURNS 


whole country was flooded. The lakes were all full 
and running over. They were all draining towards 
the southeast. Occasionally, we would come to ex¬ 
panses of water a mile, two miles, or five miles across, 
and we would have to drive far out of our way to 
get around these lakes. Sometimes we would drive 
for miles through water a foot or two deep. 

In April of the next year, 1895, I had another 
experience with the elements during a trip to Ama¬ 
rillo. Frank Wheelock and I were going in a buggy 
to Amarillo to take the train to Fort Worth. We 
were only a few miles from Lubbock when a sand¬ 
storm blew up, straight out of the north. The wind 
got harder and harder, and our horses could hardly 
travel at all. We let the buggy top back flat to keep 
it from being torn off. Then we had to hold our hats 
on. When we got to McWhorter’s place in Hale 
County we had to stop. McWhorter lived in a two- 
story adobe house. The walls would sway in and out 
for two or three inches. I was afraid they would fall 
in, but Mr. McWhorter said there was no danger of 
that. During the night his windmill blew over. The 
next morning the wind had quieted a little, and we 
started on. When we got to Amarillo we found it had 
snowed there. The drifts were ten feet deep in 
places, but all the streets north and south were swept 
as clean as a floor. 

We were gone to Fort Worth three days and then 
returned to Amarillo, where we got our horses and 
buggy and started home. On the return trip we saw 
windmills down all over the country. There were 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


205 


three down on the I O A Ranch. The new, framed 
courthouse at Lubbock was so careened and twisted 
that the doors would not shut; and the roof had to 
be taken off before the building could be squared 
again. The cook at the Nicolette Hotel told me after¬ 
wards that while the sandstorm was at its worst, he 
could hardly touch the cookstove because of so much 
electricity in the air. I have seen lots of sandstorms 
during my fifty-two years in West Texas, but I never 
saw another that could equal that one. 

The ranching venture of the Western Land and 
Live Stock Company was never profitable. The com¬ 
pany stocked when cattle prices were high. Scarcely 
had the range been stocked when prices took a long 
tumble. A two-year drouth was setting in. Before the 
pastures were completely fenced, blizzards sent thou¬ 
sands of I O A cattle drifting to the Colorado or the 
Pecos country. Many of these were not recovered 
for three or four years, and some were never brought 
back. The company was at a great expense fencing 
and watering the range. Prices continued to fluctuate 
slightly at an average level of about half what they 
were when the ranch was stocked. In 1891 another 
drouth began. By 1893 the directors of the company 
were hopelessly discouraged. In the spring of that 
year the board seriously considered disposing of the 
cattle and colonizing the lands. It is highly probable 
that had S. W. Wheelock not died a few weeks later 
the company would have attempted a colonization 
program similar to those later carried out by other 
large ranches in this part of the state. After Mr. 


206 


ROLLIE BURNS 


Wheelock’s death the company decided to dispose of 
the cattle and sell the land in a body. 

The directors gave us three years to get rid of the 
cattle. Our policy was to sell off all the yearlings 
each year, and as many of the other classes of cattle 
as we could. The T Anchor people purchased most of 
our young cattle. They had a range in the Dakotas to 
which they shipped two-year-olds, and grazed them 
until they were fours; then they sold to the northern 
markets. 

I bought the last remnant of cattle from the I O A 
Company for less than $8 a head, and immediately 
sold the cattle, 7,420 head, to J. M. Daugherty of 
Abilene, Texas. Mr. Daugherty leased the I O A 
pasture for a year and employed me as his manager. 
He intended to hold the cattle only until he could 
dispose of them to some advantage. In the meanwhile 
he drove another herd of 5,600 head he had pur¬ 
chased from J. C. Beal into the I O A pasture. In 
October, Daugherty directed me to drive the Beal 
cattle to Colorado City. I divided the cattle into two- 
trail herds. I bossed one herd and took the lead. Deve 
Harrington was in charge of the second herd and 
followed close on my trail. 

The next morning after we started, a fog came 
over, so dense and heavy we could not see fifty feet 
in any direction. Our course lay south until we came 
to the road from the T Bar Ranch to Colorado City; 
then we were to follow the road which veered south¬ 
east. The fog was so dense all day I was afraid we 
would cross it. When time came to camp I had to 


CLOSING OUT THE I O A RANCH 


207 


send a man up to the front to tell the point men (the 
two men at the head of the column) to throw the 
herd off the trail. The next morning the fog had 
lifted so that we could see two or three hundred 
yards. I was afraid we had lost some cattle during 
the night or the day before, so we counted them as 
we strung them out on the trail next morning; not 
one was missing. 

I told the point men to keep a sharp lookout for 
the road; and when the herd was on the way, I 
turned back to see how the second herd was faring. I 
had not gone over two miles until I met the point 
men. Harrington and I decided he had better take 
a count of his herd. Our tallies showed his cattle 
to be intact. 

The weather was fair that day and the next, but 
the fourth day out it began to rain. For three days 
and nights it fell without ceasing. The boys’ slickers 
and tarps began to leak, and all the bedding got wet. 
Everybody was cold, wet, and miserable. The wood 
was soaked, and the cook had a hard time getting 
anything cooked. It was during times like this that 
cowhands swore they would never punch cattle again. 
But when we finally got to Colorado, and the boys 
got dry and warm, with a big meal and several drinks 
of whiskey inside them, they forgot about their re¬ 
cent resolutions. This was the last drive I ever made 
to Colorado City. 

Daugherty soon shipped 864 head of the I O A 
(they were branded Cross C), and he sold the re¬ 
maining 6,556 head to some parties in Kansas City 


208 


ROLLIE BURNS 


for $12.50 a head. The transaction was based on 
“book count,” and not on the number of cattle actual¬ 
ly delivered by Daugherty. Many deals had been 
made on “book count and range delivery” during the 
peak of ’83 and ’84. But with memories of what had 
happened since ’85, cattlemen had long since ceased 
to do business on a basis of “book counts”. Mr. 
Daugherty must have done some clever maneuver¬ 
ing to get the people he sold to in Kansas City to 
accept his figures. We delivered the cattle to the 
Magnolia Pasture in Borden County in March, 1896. 
This ended my connection with the I O A Ranch. 
The company afterwards sold the lands to the Koker- 
nots of San Antonio. 


CHAPTER XV 
COWBOYS 

I have known a lot of cowboys in my day. During 
the twelve years I was a ranch manager I hired and 
fired several hundred of them. There were all kinds 
of characters; young kids from the settlement down- 
state, grizzled old sinners who had gone up the trail 
during the roaring 70’s and had played faro, drunk 
hard liquor, danced with notorious dance-hall women, 
and shot out the lights in Fort Dodge and Ogallala, 
and all the other types that fall in between. I have 
found there is a great deal of difference in punchers 
and in outfits. One crowd will have a herd at a round¬ 
up as wild as coyotes for three days, and another 
crowd will have the same herd as tame as milch 
calves within the next three days. The temperament 
of the punchers in an outfit is determined to some 
extent by the temperament of the boss. A hurrah boss 
will have a hurrah crowd, and an easy-going boss 
will have an easy-going crew. I once knew of a boss 
by the name of Buck Scott who could take the wild¬ 
est beef herd and have them gentle and easy to han¬ 
dle within a very few days. 

209 


210 


ROLLIE BURNS 


The number of men employed by a ranch varied 
from month to month during the various seasons of 
the year. The number of hands needed from Decem¬ 
ber to April was usually about half the number em¬ 
ployed from April to December. The extra men put 
on in April were usually transients who spent the 
winters with their families back east. About sixty- 
five per cent of these transients worked for us only 
one season j about twenty per cent returned and 
worked a second season; and about five per cent 
would work longer than three seasons. 

As a rule, more cowboys appeared in the spring 
than we could use. We always had a number of green, 
over-grown country boys to arrive. Some had bullied 
their folks into letting them come. All of them had 
been lured away by the same longings that had caused 
me to run away in 1873 to join the Wegefarth Ex¬ 
pedition. 

I recall one boy by the name of Jim Oden. He was 
nothing but a kid when he came to the I O A Ranch; 
and I liked his manner so well I employed him. 
Small, wiry, good natured, he started learning cow 
work. I never saw a person master the art so quickly. 
In three months he was a top hand, and in two years 
he was range boss for the V V N outfit. 

Somehow, I always had a kindly feeling for these 
young striplings bent on becoming cowboys. Most of 
them could be depended upon to act the fool, but the 
chances were that they would eventually get over 
that. In fact, it was probable that most of them would 
have the fool knocked out of them shortly. If I could 


COWBOYS 


211 


not give them work, I gave them the best advice I 
could and sent them on. 

I remember a story which a puncher told me 
once as to how he got the fool knocked out of him. 
His name was “Stony”, short for Stonewall. He had 
worked in Wyoming and Colorado before coming to 
Texas. He had been with us for a month or two, but 
I knew very little about him until he and I took an 
all-day ride together once. We got to talking about 
the characteristics of young cowboys and he told me 
this story: “We had been breaking broncs for a 
month, and I was stove-up, and maybe a bit foolish 
about the head yet. You must not gather from that 
that I had developed enough nerve to get up on a 
bronc and lift the blinds myself, for I hadn’t. I had 
been a sort of portable snubbing post, and when 
nothing of that kind was needed, I sat on the top rail 
of the fence and did the talking. I made no claims 
as a bronc buster, and was only a passable snubbing 
post j but when it came to telling how it ought to 
be done, I was immense. 

“There was a time, however, when I yearned to be 
a rider. It was way back in the 70’s when I was work¬ 
ing for a big horse outfit in Colorado. Every month 
we took a bunch of horses into Denver to be auc¬ 
tioned off. Some were broke and some were not. It 
was the rule of the corral where the sales were held 
that every animal offered for sale had to be ridden. 
When one of our vaqueros successfuly handled one 
of the ‘some were nots’, a round of applause came 
from the crowd which always attended the sales. 


212 


ROLLIE BURNS 


“It was at these times that I longed to be a rider. 
How I longed for the cheers, smiles, and beer which 
admiring city people showered on the knights of the 
leather. Of course, I enjoyed a little reflected glory 
from the fact that I was the friend and intimate of 
the heroes, but that did not satisfy me. I wanted to 
be one of the great, to be petted and pampered by 
grown people, and pointed to with awe by the kids. 
But hard experience on numerous occasions at the 
ranch had taught me that if I stayed on top of a 
bouncing bronc, it would be only by scratching 
leather. 

“The next best thing to being a good rider, I 
thought, was to convey the impression that I was 
good, and I set to work on that theory. On one trip 
we had an old pinto that was the greatest bluffer I 
ever saw. As soon as the lariat touched his neck the 
circus began. When a saddle was put on him and he 
was given some rope before the rider mounted, he 
would rear and tear and put on an exhibition of fancy 
pitching that was hard to beat. Then when the buster 
topped him, he would give a buck or two, and after 
that a child could handle him. My idea was: When 
he was roped at the sale and a rider called for, I 
would volunteer. He would put on his show and give 
the impression of being the toughest horse in the 
corrals. I would make the most of all the prelimina¬ 
ries, and the crowd would think I must be a great 
buster to try such an ornery cuss. Then I would 
mount and he would give a jump or two, and the 


COWBOYS 


213 


spectators would get the idea that I had conquered 
him. 

“There was a*i immense crowd present when the 
occasion arrived 3 some were wanting to buy horses, 
and some were looking for fun and excitement— 
and they got what they came after. When Old Pinto’s 
turn came, a rope was thrown on his neck, and I 
started through the mud with my saddle and blinds. 
By a few judicious cuffs and kicks I got him to throw 
a couple of fits. He snorted, pawed, reared, and 
pitched. Cheers and yells arose from the crowd. I 
heard them saying, ‘I’ll bet he’s a rider’, ‘ain’t he 
nervy’, ‘so cool about it.’ My chest went out about 
six inches, and I could hardly keep my mind on what 
I was doing for listening to the comments. That was 
my great moment. The impression I had longed for 
was about to be made. Of course, Old Pinto wasn’t 
going to do anything, but the crowd would always 
believe that I could have ridden him if he had. 

“I carefully adjusted the blinds, pulled my 
cinches up, went into the saddle, and lifted the petti¬ 
coats from his eyes. Whether it was the strange pro¬ 
ceedings, or the surroundings, or the crowd, I am 
unable to say, but that old horse evidently thought it 
an extraordinary occasion and he was expected to do 
his part—and he did it. 

“The first jump I got a birds-eye view of Denver; 
on the second, a panorama of the Platte Valley un¬ 
rolled before me. It was on the return trip to earth 
from the second jump that I made my impression— 
about twenty feet ahead of Old Pinto. As I dug the 


214 


ROLLIE BURNS 


adobe out of my ears, I heard the cheers that I had 
longed for. Somehow, they lacked the right sound. 
They were hearty enough; but, heaven knows, there 
was something wanting about them. I have since read 
that pride goes before a fall. I can’t vouch for that 5 
but I know it departs after a fall. To add insult to 
injury, a fellow in the garb of a miner waded out and 
looked at the ‘impression 5 and said, ‘If you will 
square the corners and timber her up you could hold 
the corral under the assessment law. 5 Another party, 
a Mormon from up about Greeley, said, ‘If you’d 
try’er again and manage to hit in the same place, 
you’d get water, shore.’ 

“After that, I didn’t need any fame or trimmings; 
the solitude of the ranch was good enough for me.” 

“Stoney” and I had not gone far after he finished 
this story until we crossed the sandy bed of Double 
Mountain River. At one side near the bank we saw 
a frazzled notebook like that some punchers carried 
in their pockets. I rode over, picked the notebook up, 
and found it contained a part of a cowboy’s diary. 
The place had evidently been the scene of a desper¬ 
ate conflict. The sand was pawed up, and scattered 
around were some leather fringe from a pair of leg¬ 
gings, a collar torn from a shirt by main force, and 
a small section of a man’s ear which might be de¬ 
scribed as an “underbit”. Everything seemed to in¬ 
dicate that a “scrapping” match had been conducted 
on a go-as-you-please basis 5 we were puzzled at first 
to account for the state of affairs, but after reading 
the last few pages of the diary, we knew fairly well 


COWBOYS 


215 


who the combatants were. The entries which had a 
bearing on the subject were as follows: 

March 15—Started to pullin’ bogs today, me and 
a nigger. Camped two miles above the widder wom¬ 
an’s. 

March 16—Eat dinner at the widder’s today. She 
has got 300 head cattle and a dawter. All shorthorns. 
Widder’s name is Jackson; dawter’s name is Maud. 

March 17—Found one uv old man Brown’s cows 
bogged today. She is bogged yet. I am sorry for the 
old sister, but Brown fired me last year. 

March 18—Saw old Rattlesnake today. He is 
fattern as a fule. Ain’t been rid in a year. Guess I 
will mash him pretty soon. 

March 19—Eat dinner at the widder’s agin today. 
Bill hardin was there. I axed him up to camp, but he 
said he doin’ pretty well. 

March 20—Found one of the widders cows bog¬ 
ged today. Worked all day gettin’ her out. Goin’ to 
take her home tomorrow. 

March 21—Took the cow home. Bill hardin is 
there yet. Looks like that fule would get a job an 
not be a eatin’ the bread of widders and orphins. 

March 22—Brung old Rattlesnake in tonight. 
Goin’ to drag it out uv him tomorrer. 

March 23—(No entry.) 

March 24—Got throwed yesterday. Twiest. 

March 25—there is goin’ to be war. harding told 
the widder I druv that cow in the bog and then got’er 
out and druv her home to play solid. I am goin’ to 
pessle hardin’ til he hollers. 


216 


ROLLIE BURNS 


March 26—Past the widders today and didn’t get 
axed in. That is hardin’s work. 

March 27—Boss here today. Said he had hired 
hardin’ to run his waggin this summer. I am goin’ 
to quit on the furst. Got to lick hardin’ fore I do. 

March 28—The thing comes off tomorrow. 

There were no further entries. However, we saw 
Harding at the ranch next day, and his ear showed 
no evidence of having been “underbitten.” Aside 
from a long scratch on the neck, probably caused by 
a spur rowel, he showed no signs of having been in 
the recent tussle; so we had a pretty good idea as 
to how the “thing” had terminated. 

All tenderfoot punchers had a notion that the first 
prerequisite for becoming a regular hand was ability 
to stay on top of a bucking horse; and they worked 
manfully to achieve that. Only a few ever became ex¬ 
pert riders, the great majority becoming only toler¬ 
able ones. The next ambition was to become a top 
rope man. That distinction was one to be envied. At 
a round-up where thirty or forty men were working, 
the top rope men stood out sharply above the rest. 
The young cowhand literally spent days and weeks, 
and months practicing with the rope. As in the case 
of riders, expert ropers were few. In thinking back 
over the great ropers I have known, I believe the 
list is headed by Joe Stokes, who worked during the 
early 80’s for the Long S outfit and later for the 
Spurs. Then there was Handy Cole, of the Spur 
Ranch, who did a lot of “reping” in the Square and 
Compass country. Van Sanders, of the “22” Ranch, 


COWBOYS 


217 


was mighty good, and Tom Harrison of the Spurs 
could wield a lariat, as well as cards in a poker 
game, to a fare-you-well. It seemed that the Spur 
outfit had a corner on the ropers. I was not any 
slouch myself in my younger days, but after I got 
my shoulder stove up, I never tried to compete any 
more. 

There was a transient who came through the coun¬ 
try and worked for the Square and Compass awhile 
who was also hard to beat. We called him Snaky; I 
never knew why unless it was because he handled his 
tall, slim, wiry body when riding, roping, or brand¬ 
ing, gracefully like a snake a-crawling. He was an 
honest-to-goodness top hand; the trouble was he 
would never stay in one place long enough to do any 
good. He was restless-like, and as soon as he got a 
little money ahead, he always drifted on. 

I marveled at Snaky’s ability to rope. One day 
while we were loafing at a line camp, I persuaded 
him to give a little exhibition and show me some of 
the fine points of his skill. We rode out to where 
some cattle were grazing. Before he started roping, 
he showed me how he swung a rope and made a few 
fancy shots, throwing the lasso from or to any point, 
over either shoulder, behind or in front. Then he 
made a pass at a big bull, who looked surprised and 
started off like a steam engine, but Snaky’s pony 
planted his feet firmly in the ground and checked 
Mr. Bull in his mad career before he got well 
started. The lunge didn’t throw the bull, and he 
went round and round, as the horse pivoted. It is 


218 


ROLLIE BURNS 


mighty hard to throw a large animal by the horns; 
so Snaky neatly worked the loop loose and flipped 
the lariat from the bull’s horns. Then Snaky began 
to exhibit what he could do. He could put a loop 
just in front of a steer’s foot, while horse and steer 
were going full blast, just in time for the steer to step 
in it. As quick as lightning he would tighten the rope 
with a sudden jerk, his pony would swing, and the 
steer would roll over in the dust. Snaky could put 
the loop in front of either forefoot or hindfoot and 
never miss. He would start the noose with a few 
quick whirls, and then it would shoot to the place 
at which he aimed like a bullet from a revolver. 

A few days later we had a little roping match at 
a round-up. The contestants were to cut a steer from 
the herd, rope, throw, and tie the animal. Van San¬ 
ders made the best record; his time was two minutes 
and ten seconds. Snaky came second , his time was two 
minutes and forty seconds. However, his first lariat 
broke, and he had to untie another from his saddle 
and make a second catch. 

A good many negroes worked on the ranches in 
this part of the state. They were employed as cooks, 
horse wranglers, and bronc busters. Jordan Rollins 
worked for us on the I O A Ranch for five years. 
While we were at headquarters he broke horses, and 
when on range or trail work he wrangled the remuda. 
Tall, rawboned, long-legged, and loose-jointed, Jor¬ 
dan could ride broncs with less exertion and more 
ease than any buster I ever saw. Jordan had a way 
with broncs. He would spend hours working with a 


COWBOYS 


219 


horse before he saddled him, putting a blanket on 
and taking it off a hundred times. 

Jordan was honest, careful, dependable. He did 
his work well and was always doing favors for the 
punchers. On range and trail work I always took my 
turn at standing guard along with the other boys. 
Jordan always insisted on standing his turn and mine 
too. If anyone felt indisposed, it was Jordan who 
volunteered to relieve him. I paid him as much as 
I paid the white men. In addition, he washed for 
some of the boys and made a little extra, and he 
saved every dollar. When he went home one winter, 
he gave me $500 to keep for him until he got back. 
I understand that he later acquired considerable 
property in his home community. 

The average puncher used a great deal of profan¬ 
ity. He did not do it because he had anything especial¬ 
ly malicious against the Deity, but mostly because he 
wanted to be like the other punchers, and because it 
helped him to express himself more forcibly. I used 
to wonder if these fellows who took the Almighty’s 
name in vain so often were really as irreligious as a 
stranger might think. I am convinced that they were 
not. In fact, down deep under his hide the average 
cowhand was religious. No one could claim he was 
ritualistic. He would have hooted at being called a 
churchman, although most of them after their 
punching days were over “got religion” at some camp 
meeting and joined the Baptist or Methodist church. 

The average puncher had a respect for the super¬ 
natural forces he could not understand. Occasionally 


220 


ROLLIE BURNS 


one came along with Christian professions, but he had 
his own notions about the application of his creed. 
There was Pete McSpadden, a six-footer, raw-boned, 
skinny and a top hand. He was a born orator, and 
would entertain the boys with political speeches, 
sermons, and, if needs be, he would pray. He was 
religiously inclined, and I heard he became a preach¬ 
er in his later life. One night while on a round-up, 
we got to talking about religion, and Pete expressed 
his notions about it. 

“Lots of folks that really want to do right, think 
servin’ the Lord means shoutin’ themselves hoarse 
praisin’ His name. Now, I tell you how I look at 
that. Suppose Pm working for Jim here. If I’d sit 
around the house telling what a good feller Jim is, 
and singing songs to him, and get out in the night 
and serenade him when he’d rather sleep, I’d be 
doing jist like lots of Christians do, but I wouldn’t 
suit Jim, and I’d get fired mighty quick. But when 
I button on my chaps and hustle around the hills and 
see that Jim’s herd is all right, and ain’t sufferin’ for 
water and feed, and ain’t being run off the range and 
being branded by cow thieves, then I am serving Jim 
as he wants to be served. If I was riding for the 
Lord, I believe He would like for me to ride out in 
the ravines where the common folks live and keep 
His herd from being branded by the Devil and run 
off to where the feed was short and the drinking 
holes were dried up, and where there would be no 
friendly cedar breaks or creek bluffs for shelter when 
the blizzards come. 


COWBOYS 


221 


“I don’t see how I would be helpin’ the Lord if 
I just laid around the ranch house eatin’ up all the 
grub I could get and getting down on my prayer 
bones and taffying the Lord up and askin’ for more. 

“The Bible says somethin’ somewhere—I’ve the 
place marked with an ace of spades—about how peo¬ 
ple serve the Lord by feedin’ and waterin’, and look¬ 
in’ after the herd. I think it would do lots of people 
good to read it over. When a critter has had his moral 
nature starved ever since he was a calf, and was let 
run a human maverick until the devil took pity on 
him and put his brand on him so deep that even when 
his hair is longest in the spring no one would have 
any trouble telling whose herd he belonged to—it 
shows mighty plain that the cowpunchers of the Lord 
have been a-huntin’ salary harder than they’ve been 
a-huntin’ souls.” 

That’s the way Pete felt about it, and sometimes 
he caused some of the boys to do a little thinking. 

Cowpunchers had their own way of talking. They 
were rather sparing with words, and had a way of 
saying things concise and to the point. The only rule 
of speech they seemed to observe was to avoid “beat- 
in’ around the bush”. They devised a vocabulary of 
their own. A cutting horse was often a “chopping 
horse” or a “carving horse”. Riding a bronc was 
called “forking a horse”. Looking at a horse’s teeth 
to tell his age was “toothing”. The owner of a ranch 
was often referred to as “the presidente”; the man¬ 
ager was the “boss”; the man in charge of a round¬ 
up or trail outfit was “wagon boss” or “straw boss” 5 


222 


ROLLIE BURNS 


a man in charge of a smaller detail of punchers was 
“top screw”; and common punchers were “waddies”, 
or “screws”. A man from the East who had come 
to learn cow work was a “short-horn”, a “chuck- 
eater”, or “arbuckle”. A “stray man” was a puncher 
from another ranch attached to a rounding-up outfit 
for the purpose of gathering his employer’s stray 
cattle. A “line-rider” was a hand who, before ranch¬ 
es were fenced, rode imaginary lines to keep the cat¬ 
tle within certain boundaries. A “fence-rider” was a 
cowboy employed to ride a fence and keep it in re¬ 
pair ; a “bog-rider” was a man who rode up and down 
the creeks and pulled cattle out that had mired. 

“Going a-gallin’ ” signified that a puncher was 
courting a girl. “Cutting a rusty” indicated that one 
was doing his best. “Faggin’ ”, or “goin’ fast like the 
heel flies are after you”, meant someone or some¬ 
thing moving fast. A “goosey” is a man who is nerv¬ 
ous. “Telling a windy” was telling a story. A “wind¬ 
jammer” was a person who “told windies”. “I ain’t 
got any medicine” indicated that the person did not 
have any information on a subject. “Anti-goglin” was 
going in a zig-zag way. “Sweating a game” was look¬ 
ing on at a game of cards, but taking no part in it. 
When a cowboy stayed out all night, he had “stayed 
out with the dry cattle”. A man expert with a rope 
was said to “swing a cat gut” well. Riding on a cat¬ 
tle train instead of on a regular passenger train was 
“saving money for the bartender”. Roping a cow 
was “putting your string on her”. When a calf was 
thrown on its back with its feet up-in the air it “was 


COWBOYS 


111 

sunning his moccasins”. “A running iron” was a long 
branding iron with a curve on one end, or sometimes 
it was a large ring which a puncher carried tied to his 
saddle j when hot, he handled it with a pair of wire 
pliers or a couple of sticks. 

There was a number of ways of describing ear¬ 
marks. A “crop” was to cut off the end of the ear. 
An “underbit left” was to cut a piece out of the 
bottom side of the ear. An “overbit” was the same 
thing on the top side of the ear. A “swallow fork” 
was to cut a triangular piece out of each end of the 
ear. A “split” was to slit one or both ears horizon¬ 
tally without cutting out any portion of the ear. A 
“jingle bob” was to slit the ear diagonally in such a 
way that the under part would flop; this mark al¬ 
ways seemed inhumane to me. “Grub and sharp” was 
to “crop” one ear off close to the head and to cut off 
most of the other one, leaving what was left pointed; 
this was invariably a cattle thief’s mark, as it enabled 
him to do away with any previous marks which the 
animal may have had. 

In addition to the “chuck wagon” a rounding-up 
outfit sometimes had a “hoodlum wagon”, a light 
wagon for hauling extras such as wood, water, and 
so on. The cook was a “coosey”, “cosinero”, “dough- 
roller”, or “biscuit-shooter”. When he called he 
yelled, “Come and get it”, “chuckaway”, or “come 
a-running”—these calls always got results. “Pooch” 
or “nigger in the blanket” was the cowboy’s dessert. 

A “brain tablet” was a cigarette. When a horse un¬ 
expectedly began to buck he “swallowed his head”. 


224 


ROLLIE BURNS 


If he bucked his rider off, he “turned the pack”. 
“Curry him out” meant to rake a horse up and down 
the shoulders with the spurs. “Galves” were spurs. 
To “lock spurs” was to tie a string around the rowel 
so that the rowel would not turn; without doing this 
the spurs did not assist the rider in staying on; on 
the contrary, they acted as sort of ball-bearings in 
throwing him. A “saddle roll” was a roll of blankets 
tied across the saddle just behind the horn; these 
helped to wedge the rider in the saddle, and made it 
more difficult for the horse to throw him. “Hobble 
the stirrups” was to tie them together with a rope 
running from one to the other under the horse’s 
belly; this prevented the stirrups from flopping, 
while the horse was bucking. “Ridin’ ’em with a slick 
saddle” was to ride a bronc without a “saddle roll” 
without “hobbling the stirrups” and without “grab¬ 
bing the apple”; a real buster scorned the use of any 
device which gave him an advantage over the horse. 
A “night horse” was one the wrangler kept staked 
nearby at night to ride after the “remuda” early next 
morning. The “remuda” was the saddle horses used 
by a cow outfit. A cayuse was a horse, usually one for 
which the rider held no admiration. If the rider of a 
bucking horse had to hold to the horn (or pommel) 
or any other part of the saddle, he was “grabbing the 
apple” or “pulling leather”. 

A “sougan” was a blanket or comforter in a punch¬ 
er’s bed. He carried two sougans in the summer and 
three or four during the winter. They were rolled up 
in a tarp (tarpaulin) and the bed-roll was called a 


COWBOYS 


225 


“hot-roll” or “velvet couch”. “Spool your beds” 
meant for the punchers to roll their beds up and tie 
them with a rope. 

The average puncher of the 80’s and 90’s was in¬ 
clined to be shy around women. He might be a con¬ 
siderable talker in a cow camp, but when he got 
around a lady he couldn’t think of anything to say. 
His desire for love affairs was strong, however, and 
if he was short on words, he was long on any kind 
of action which would convey his feelings. I made 
the following clipping from the Taylor County 
News in 1886: 

“The postmaster at Fort Keogh, M. T., who declined to 
vacate in favor of the woman appointed to succeed him, has 
been ousted in a summary manner by a cowboy admirer of the 
new postmistress. Eight shots were fired. Four took effect in the 
postmaster and none in the cowboy. The postmaster is dead. 
Long live the postmistress. The cowboy should now marry her, 
and the romance would be complete.” 

This event was typical of cowboy psychology. I do 
not mean that all punchers went around looking for 
postmasters to kill; this is, perhaps, the only event of 
this kind. This puncher probably had never said a 
dozen words to the postmistress, but when an oppor¬ 
tunity came whereby he could let his feelings be 
known in a more tangible way, he loaded up his .45 
and started in. 

So much has been written about a cowboy’s “togs” 
(wearing apparel) that I will omit them here; but 
there is still something to be said about saddles. In 
the early 70’s the saddles were short, shallow, and 
very clumsy. They were neither comfortable nor 


226 


ROLLIE BURNS 


practical for ranch use, but they had to serve the pur¬ 
pose, as no better ones were to be had. They had 
large, flat horns the size of a tin plate, eight or ten 
inches in diameter. They were covered with home- 
tanned rawhide, and strung with long buckskin 
strings. The stirrups were at least six inches wide and 
made of hickory or pecan wood. 

The next style came in during the early 80’s, and 
was called the “apple horn”. The horn was almost 
round and about the size of a small hen’s egg. The 
seat was deeper and the stirrups not more than half 
as wide as the old models. From that time on saddles 
were improved rapidly. Saddle pockets just behind 
the seat were added for carrying such miscellaneous 
articles as tobacco, wire cutters, lunch, or pistols. This 
type of saddle gradually developed into the modern 
saddle. The swell, or rolled, front of most modern 
saddles, however, is a late innovation. 

Although there were saddle factories in the East, 
practically all the good saddles used for cow work 
were made in the cattle country. In West Texas the 
most famous saddle makers during the 80’s and 90’s 
were located at Colorado City. Farther North, Den¬ 
ver was the saddle-making center. In 1885 I had 
C. C. Blandford at Colorado City make a saddle for 
me. With all its trimmings, it cost $135. Among sev¬ 
eral other special features it had a soft quilted seat. 
This saddle was nice and comfortable for a short 
ride, but on a long ride it would blister the rider. 
For hard riding, a hard, slick seat is far better. 

A good, serviceable saddle without any extra trim- 


COWBOYS 


227 


mings could be had for $50. The old saying about a 
cowboy “riding a $30 horse with a $50 saddle” was 
literally true. A saddle that would stand the hard 
usage of cattle work could seldom be bought for less 
than $50, and the average cowhorse was worth from 
$25 to $40. 

The puncher’s lariat was attached to his saddle 
horn with a leather string. During the 70’s and 80’s 
it was customary for everybody to use a stout string 
for this purpose. About 1888 a puncher was killed on 
the Long S Ranch by his spur hanging in his lariat 
leather. After that practically everyone in West 
Texas got to using a weak string, so that if he got 
tangled in it some way the string would break. 

Spurs also underwent a development. During the 
70’s the shanks were long, and the rowels were at 
least two inches in diameter. Many of them were 
adorned with small bells, which would jingle con¬ 
tinuously. These spurs were clumsy and not so prac¬ 
tical. Later the shanks became shorter and the rowels 
smaller. 

Along with the changes in saddles and spurs came 
another change. The 70’s and early 80’s might be 
called the age of rawhide and the period since the 
80’s, the age of wire. Before the introduction of wire, 
if anything broke on a ranch like a wagon tongue or a 
single tree, it was fixed with rawhide. The hand 
would cut a strip of rawhide, wet it, and wrap the 
broken object securely. When the rawhide dried, it 
was as tight as a drum. After the introduction of wire, 
rawhide ceased to be used as a repairing material. 


228 


ROLLIE BURNS 


There is as much difference in cow horses as there 
is in cowboys. One horse may look pretty much like 
another to a stranger, but to a puncher who knows 
his mount, every horse has its own individuality. 
Real top horses are as scarce in a cow outfit as top 
hands, but it is seldom that a top hand is found with¬ 
out a top horse. 

So much has been written about cow horses and 
horse nature that I will not go into that. I differ with 
Will James, however, as to how horses should be 
broken. His method is to work carefully and long 
with the horse, getting him as gentle as possible 
before riding him. That method is all right, but it 
was not practical in West Texas fifty years ago. We 
did not have time to work for days with a horse be¬ 
fore topping him. When time is an element, the best 
way to conquer a horse is to treat him rough for the 
first three or four days; and after that, be good to 
him. The first thing we did to a bronc was to saddle 
and ride him. We didn’t make any petting party of it 
either. When he started bucking, we gave him the 
“locked spurs” and whipped him with a quirt. About 
three ridings cured the average horse of his buck¬ 
ing. He might pitch some thereafter when first sad¬ 
dled in the morning, but he did not buck with the 
intention of dismounting the rider. 

One of the most essential traits for a bronc rider 
was plenty of self-assurance. If a buster ever got 
afraid of a horse, the horse seemed to realize it even 
more quickly, sometimes, than the rider himself. In 
that case, the affair usually terminated by the horse’s 


COWBOYS 


229 


conquering the rider instead of the rider’s conquer¬ 
ing the horse. 

There was a way to keep a horse from bucking at 
all. One could take a forked stick, fasten the forks 
under the horse’s jaw, and tie the other end between 
the horse’s front legs to the girth. The horse could 
not get his head down. Regular busters never used 
this method, for the best way to master a horse is to 
let him get his pitch out. 

Once in a great while, a bronc rider found an out¬ 
law that could hardly be conquered at all. I tackled 
one back in 1872 in Grayson County. We called him 
Old Gobbler. Two different busters had already tried 
to break him and failed. I took him with some reluc¬ 
tance, because he had the reputation of being bad 
medicine. He was a sorrel, big, strong, with a bald 
face and stocking legs. He was a most expert sun- 
fisher—he would twist his body while in the air so as 
to unseat the rider. When he bucked, he snorted and 
screamed. Every day for a week he pawed, kicked, 
squealed, and squalled. When he found he couldn’t 
get me off any other way, he would try to bite my 
leg. I finally cured him of biting by hitting him on 
the nose. A horse’s nose is one of the tenderest parts 
of his anatomy. 

After I had worked with him for about two weeks 
and thought I had him fairly well mastered, I was 
riding him down a road one day. There was a tree 
about twenty feet from the road, and when we got 
almost even with it, old Gobbler suddenly whirled 
from the road and ran under that tree. I am sure he 


230 


ROLLIE BURNS 


figured that was his only way of getting me off. The 
plan worked, and as I hit the ground he kicked me in 
the forehead. That was sixty years ago, and the im¬ 
print of his hoof is still on my head. So far as I 
know, he was never branded, but he certainly branded 
me. I finally conquered him by rough treatment, but 
he always had the soul of a devil and had to be 
watched. 

I once had another outlaw that I called Ring Tail, 
a blood bay with a snip nose. He was a cayuse, and 
would buck when first saddled, every day of the year. 
He was the only horse I ever rode that would go 
through different stunts in bucking. He would start 
on a straight buck, change to a zig-zag, and then 
give a few “sun-fisher” bucks. After doing all of 
these stunts, he would grab the bits in his mouth and 
run until he was smothered down by a hackamore. 
After all this darn foolishness, he was about played 
out, but he could still wring his tail. 

During twenty-five years of active range work, I 
had four top horses. In 1883-1884, I rode White 
Bunkum, an eight hundred and fifty pound bundle 
of nerves. He had been captured from the Llano 
outfit early in 1883 by Comanche Indians and ran¬ 
somed back for $20. He was great for cutting, but 
he did not like roping. I suppose it was because he 
was so small that the lunging animal gave him too 
much of a jolt. 

From 1885 to 1888 I rode Tallow Eye, a buckskin 
with a black mane and tail, and creamy eyes. He was 
good for riding, cutting and roping. All I had to do 


COWBOYS 


231 


was to show him where the cut was being held and 
indicate which animal I wanted in the herd j then he 
would do the rest. I could drop the reins over the 
saddle horn, and Tallow Eye would take the animal 
out of the herd and to the cut. 

During the same time I had in my mount Big 
Foot, a big blood bay. He was a good roping horse, 
especially with heavy cattle; but he was not so good 
on cutting. 

The greatest of all cow horses in my experience 
was Gray Baby, a little gray. He was not only a good 
cutting and roping horse, but he loved the work. 
Fast and gentle, he was never happier than when 
working in a herd, keeping his mind on his business 
better than most men do. I could leave him any¬ 
where and he would stand until I returned. When 
running full speed over ground containing numerous 
dog holes, he kept his eye on the ground, dodging 
and jumping. Only once in seven years did Gray 
Baby ever lose his footing. While cutting a steer on 
slippery ground, he whirled suddenly, and his feet 
went out from under him. He got up before I did 
and came to me trembling and excited. I patted him 
on the forehead and mounted. He went to work as if 
nothing had happened. A great little horse with 
human sense. 


CHAPTER XVI 
TURNS FOR THE WORSE 

For several years before I left the I O A Ranch 
I had been preparing to start into the ranching busi¬ 
ness on a small scale for myself. In 1891 I had filed 
on a section of school land two miles north of the 
I O A headquarters under the “One Section Act” of 
1887 at a cost of two dollars per acre. The next year 
I started improving the land, and by 1896 I had 
$10,000 worth of improvements on it. In that year 
the Four Section Act” was passed. In order to be 
eligible for taking up land under this law I had to 
forfeit my original section. I refiled on it in 1898, 
along with three other sections “within a five-mile 
radius”. In the refiling, I got the home section for 
one dollar an acre instead of two. About the same time 
I purchased the three sections of the old Williams 
sheep ranch. This gave me 4,480 acres of my own 
and I leased another 3,250 acres. With this tract of 
7,730 acres I started the Idlewild Ranch and began 
raising registered Herefords. 

About the time I was starting Idlewild Ranch we 
suddenly lost two of our children from diphtheria. 

232 


TURNS FOR THE WORSE 


233 


Their deaths were largely due to the fact that the 
nearest doctor was at Plainview. By the time we sent 
a man horseback the fifty-five miles and the doctor 
drove back in a buggy, it was too late for him to do 
any good. 

By 1897 enough settlers had come to Lubbock 
County for us to organize a school system. The whole 
county was one district. There were three trustees 
and three small, one-teacher schools; by mutual con¬ 
sent each trustee had complete control of his own 
school. The Groves school was the largest of the 
three, and was located seven or eight miles north¬ 
west of Lubbock. It had four patrons, but three of 
these had twenty-nine children: G. O. Groves had 
ten, Joe Lang, ten and Sam Gholson, nine. Mr. 
Groves was trustee of this school. The Young school 
was located about two miles west of Slaton, and Mr. 
Young was the trustee. I was the trustee for the Can¬ 
yon School which was located two miles north of 
Idlewild Ranch. We had about ten pupils in 1898. 

Ever since I had seen my first windmill on the 
Plains about 1883, I had wondered if the wind could 
not be harnessed to furnish power. In 1904 I de¬ 
cided to experiment with the idea. I purchased a 
huge windmill, mounted it on a seventy-five foot 
tower, and installed a device for transmitting the 
power to a feed-grinder. On the whole, the experi¬ 
ment was not a success. The wind was too spasmodic, 
and we had no way to regulate the speed of the 
mill. If the wind were steady and at the proper 


234 


ROLLIE BURNS 


velocity, we could grind feed very well, but such 
occasions were rare. 

In 1907 I sold the ranch for $25,000, moved to 
Lubbock, and began to try my hand at business. My 
first venture was in an automobile stage line. Three 
other men and myself organized a partnership and 
purchased four two-cylinder, chain-drive Buicks at 
a cost of $1,250 each. The company sent a boy from 
Kansas City to teach us how to drive. On our first 
trip we left Amarillo early in the morning and got 
to Lubbock late the next day. Later we got to where 
we could make the drive in a day, provided we got 
an early start and did not have any trouble; we 
usually had trouble, however. After a few weeks I 
bought out the other three partners. My first change 
in policy was to leave Hale Center off my route and 
include Plainview. It was not long until another out¬ 
fit put in a line of Jackson cars in opposition to my 
line. I either had to quit business or buy the other 
line out. I did the latter, but it cost me dearly, be¬ 
cause the Jackson cars were no good. 

When the railroad reached Plainview from Can¬ 
yon City in 1909, I ran my cars from Plainview to 
Lubbock. By that time I had traded off the two- 
cylinder cars and installed four four-cylinder cars at 
a cost of $2,750 each. I was having so much trouble 
with wagon freighters that I procured a private right- 
of-way all the way from Plainview to Lubbock. I 
was approaching a freighter one day and his horses 
began to rear and try to kick out of the traces before 
I got within a quarter of a mile. The freighter 


TURNS FOR THE WORSE 


235 


jumped out with his Winchester and motioned for 
me to go around. I did, and made the circle a big one. 
I got the right-of-way by making arrangements with 
the landowners whereby I was to put in stock-guard 
crossings at the fences, and grade the road. Only the 
landowners and I were to use it. I graded two roads 
side by side, and used one for dry weather, and one 
for wet weather. When the railroad reached Lub¬ 
bock in 1909, I sold my cars and retired from the 
bus business. 

Since then I have dabbled in a number of enter¬ 
prises, and have always come out at the little end 
of the horn. Among other things I was county tax 
assessor for fourteen years. Somehow, a tax assessor’s 
job is one that most broke cowmen seem to come to 
sooner or later. As long as I stayed in the cattle busi¬ 
ness I prospered, but when I left the only vocation I 
knew, every venture that I made was for the worse. 


(The End) 



INDEX 


A 

Abilene, 56, 206 

Alabama and Texas Cattle Company, 
139 

Albany, 198, 199 
Alley, Jack, 90 

Amarillo, 158-161, 163-164, 198, 
203, 204, 234 
Ambler, E. T., 107 
Anderson, “One Arm”, 134, 135 
Anderson, Shorty, 174-176 
Antelope, 116, 141, 173, 193-194 
Apache Indians, see Indians 
Aspermont, 195 

B 

Barron, Sol, 119 
Beal, J. C., 206 
Beal, John T., 192 
Beal, Nick, 132, 142 
Bear Creek, 64 
Bears, 31, 137 
Beaver Creek, 20 
Beaver Lake, 65 
Bell, John, 96-97 
Big Salt Lake, 97, 100 
Big Spring, 152 

Big Wichita River, 18, 20, 28, 39 
Blanco Canyon, 186 
Blanford, C. C., 226 
Boaz, David, 148-151 
Bogs, 164-165 

Boles, George, 132, 141, 176, 177 
Boles, Mary Emma, see Burns, Mary 
Emma Boles 
Boles, Will, 132 
Bone industry, 56 


Borden County, 31, 95, 208 
Branding, 154-155, 157 
Brands, 35, 68, 150-153 
Brazos River, 78, 135 
Brewster County, 161 
Brigham Brothers, 151 
Brown, Boley, 136 
Brown, Jim, 31 

Browning, Della, see McCommis, 
Mrs. Jim 

Browning, Joe, 119 
Bucking, 17-18, 229-230 
Bucking, see also Horse-breaking, 
Riding feats 

Buckle B. Ranch, see Jumbo Ranch 
Buffalo hunters’ camp, 55-56 
Buffalo Springs, 75, 172 
Buffaloes, 19-20, 21-25, 39-40, 42, 
55-56, 100-101, 104, 134-135, 
173, 174 
Bull Creek, 131 
Burns, Lynn, 146-147 
Burns, Mary Emma Boles, 131-132, 
145-147 

Buzzards, 117-118 

c 

Caldwell, J. D., 196 
Cambridge, 18 
Canadian River, 21-23 
Canyon City, 153, 161, 234 
Canyon School, 233 
Caprock, 55, 78, 82, 91, 107, 111, 
117, 126, 128, J33, 137, 138, 
142, 186-187, 174, 179 
Cap Round, 78 
Catfish Creek, 55 


238 


INDEX 


Cattle, Loss of, 165, 167-168 

Cattle, Skinning, 165 

Cattle stealing, 35-36, 150-153 

Cedar Lake, 134 

Childress County, 14 

Christmas, 90-91 

Circuses, 176-177 

Civil War, 4-6 

Clairemont, 126, footnote 

Clothing, 42-43 

Colbert, Indian Territory, 202 

Cole, Handy, 216 

Collier, Tom, 176 

Collin County, 4-6, 28 

Collinsworth County, 14, 21 


Colorado 

City, 56, 

75, 

100, 

118, 

127-132,. 135, 

139, 

143, 

146, 

152, 

195, 198, 

202, 

, 206 

-207, 

226 





Colorado 

River, 95-96, 

133, 

135, 


142, 161 

Comanche Indians, see Indians 
Concho River, 161 
Cook County, 16 
Cooper, Coon, 132 
Cooper, Mrs. Coon, 87, 132 
Cooper, Mrs. Laura, 132 
Coryell County, 131 
Cotton raising, 188 
Cow hunts, 67-70 
Coyotes, 40-41, 103, 116, 168 
Crab-grass, 188-189 
Crosby County, 72, 84, 119, 172, 
191 

Cross C., see I O A 
Cross C Ranch, see I O A Ranch 
Crump, W. D., 199 
Crutchfield, Dick, 90 
Curlews, 167 
Curry Comb brand, 107 
Curry Comb Ranch, 74-75, 77, 104 
Curry Comb Ranch see also Llano 
Ranch 

Curtis and Lazarus, 100 
Cyclones, 178-180 


D 

D. Z. Ranch, 100 

Dalton, Charles Alfred, 77 

Dancing, 87-92 

Daugherty, James M., 206-208 

Dawson County, 95, 161 

Deep Creek, 131 

Deer, 137 

DeGraflFenried, Rodie, 87 
DeGrafiFenried, Solon, 24-25 
Denison, 8-11, 46-48, 50, 53, 56, 
71, 131, 189 
Denney, John C., 53-54 
DeQuazy’s Store, 73-74 
Devil’s River, 65 
Diary, Cowboy’s, 214-216 
Dickens County, 76, 80, 84, 87, 
119, 199 

Diction, Cowboy, 221-225 
Dobie walls, 24 
Dockum, Charles, 75-76 
Dockum, W. C., 76, 90-91 
Dockum’s Ranch, 75-76, 84, 94 
Donley County, 14 
Double Mountain, 77, 135-136 
Double Mountain Fork, 139, 144 
Double Mountain River, 76, 125, 
126, and footnote , 214 
Drouths, 144-145, 203, 205 
Dry Devil’s River, 65-66 
Durant, 10 

E 

Eagles, 137, 138 
Earmarks, 35, 223 
Edwards, C. O., 191 
Edwards, George, 87-88, 91 
“80” range, 77 
Elections, 144 
Espuela, 199 

Estacado, 108-109, 132, 158, 172, 
176, 181-182, 185-186, 199 

F 

Fence cutters, 112, 114, 190-191 
Fence cutters, see also Free-rangers 
Fence riders, 222 


INDEX 


239 


Fences, 112-113, 127, 128, 137, 
149, 162 
Fiddlers, 87-89 
Fisher County, 77, 119 
Flats, the, 54, 55 
Floyd County, 84 
Fog, 206-207 

Food, 26-28, 42, 44-47, 49, 64, 75, 
87, 93-95, 98, 154, 187, 198 
Fort Elliott-, 73 
Fort Griffin, 54-56, 73, 114 
Fort Richardson, 27-28, 31, 43 
Fort Sill, 104 
Fort Stockton, 73 
Fort Sumner, 73, 121 
Fort Worth, 28, 50-52, 71, 78, 148, 
204 

Four Section Act, 232 
Free-rangers, 123, 124 
Frogs, 163 
Fruit trees, 188-189 
Frying Pan Ranch, 159 

G 

Gail, 31 

Gaines County, 134 
Gainesville, 16, 49, 50 
Galbraith, Ben, 104, 106-108, 111- 
112 

Galbraith, David G., 108 
Gambling, 41-42, 74 
Garrison, John, 78, 81, 84-87, 90- 
92, 96-99 

Garza County, 74, 76-77, 84, 87, 
104, 106, 125, 126, 144 
Gatesville, 131 
Gavitt Creek, 130, 137 
Gholson, Sam S., 75, 87, 107-110, 
233 

Ghosts, 180-184 
Golden, Sam, 178, 180 
Good, Doak, 100 

Grayson County, 8-9, 14, 50, 57, 
131, 229 

Grimes, Charles, 31 
Groves, G. O., 233 
Groves School, 233 
Grubbing and sharping, 35, 223 


H 

HH H Ranch, see Three H Ranch 
H I T range, 77 
Hale Center, 234 
Hale County, 204 
Hale, Dunn and Henson, 67, 70-72 
Haley, J. E., The X I T Ranch of 
Texas , 74 
Hale County, 14 
Happy, 157 

Harding, Bill, 215-216 
Harrell, Franklin and Henson, 103 
Harrington, Deve, 206-207 
Harrison, James, 196-197 
Harrison, Tom, 217 
Harvey Creek, 78 
Hays, Jasper, 107 
Hefker, John 119 
Henrietta, 18, 28 
Hensley, Charles, 72 
Hensley, Henry, 68-69 
Hensley, John, 72, 77 
Hensley Brothers’ Ranch, 72-73 
Hockley County, 108 
Hogs, Wild, 79-92 
Holiday Creek, 18 
Holmes, Charles, store, 108 
Horses, Wild, 173 
Horsbrugh, Fred, 199 
Horse-breaking, 12, 17-18, 22-23, 
38-89, 211-214, 228-230 _ 

Horse-breaking, see also Riding 
feats 

Horse-shoeing, 58-60 
Houston and Texas Central, 8 
Howard County, 95 
Hunt, L. D., Ill 
Hunt, Lint, 109 
Hunt, Roll, 111 

Hunt, Winford, 180-184, 175-176 
Hutson, John, 164 

I 

I O A, 151, 207 

I O A Ranch, 135, 147-208, 210, 
218, 232 

Idlewild Ranch, 232, 233 


240 


INDEX 


Indians, 23-24, 32-35, 37, 61, 64- 
65, 75-76, 78, 80-83, 104-105, 
189-190, 230 
Ironi Greek, 32 

J 

JMIL, 121 

Jack County, 34-35, 46-48, 50, 54, 
67, 125 

James, Will, 228 
Javelinas, 60-62 
Johnson, Major, W. V., 156 
Johnson, S. A., 107 
Julian Lake, 158 
Jumbo Cattle Company, 142 
Jumbo Ranch, 129, 131, 132 
Junction City, 57, 63, 64 

K 

K I D, 75 
Keater, J S., 148 
Keechi Valley, 102 
Kent County, 77, 84, 126 footnote , 
135 

Kidwell Brothers’ Ranch, 75 
Kimble County, 57 
Kneeing, 153-156 
Kyle, Dan, 77 

L 

L A N C Ranch, 74 
L X Ranch, 160 
Lane, General, 1-4 
Lang, Joe, 233 
Lariats, 227 
Levelland, 108 
Lewis, J. P., 197-198 
Lice, 117-118 

Lightning, 122, 142-144, 167 
Lindsey, Finis, 125 
Lindsey, Jim, 125 
Line-rider, 222 

Line-riding, see Riding fence 
Little Lost Valley, 50-51 
Llano Cattle Company, 106 
Llano Ranch, 104, 106-124, 136, 
144, 154, 155, 178, 230 


Llano River, 60 
Loafer Ridge, 168 
Lobos, 40-41, 81, 167-170 
Lofton, John T., 191, 196, 197 
Long, Andy J., 76 
Long, Frank, 76 
Long S Ranch, 153, 216 
Loving, George B., 46, 47, 48, 49, 
71, 125 

Lubbock, Thomas S., 196 
Lubbock, 31, 73, 122, 151, 160, 
161, 164, 169, 196-200, 201, 
203-205, 233, 235 
Lubbock County, 75, 84, 87, 108, 
135, 147, 148, 149, 188, 195, 
198, 233 

Lubbock Leader, 197 
Lycon, T. J., 107 
Lynn County, 84, 126 footnote, 

156, 191 

M 

M K range, 131 
McCommis, Jim, 87, 119-121 
McCommis, Mrs. Jim, 119-122, 132 
McCord, James, see Nave-McCord 
Cattle Company 
McDonald, Bill, 97, 100, 102 
McDonald Creek, 77-78 
McKenzie Trail, 73 
McSpadden, Pete, 133, 134, 177- 
180, 220-221 

Magnolia Ranch, 131, 141, 208 
Mann, Clay M., 77 
Martimer, Steve, 102 
Martin, Tang, 180-181 
Martin County, 95 
Matador Ranch, 91, 133 
Meadow, 191 

Mescalero Apache Indians, see In¬ 
dians 

Menard, 64 

Menardville, see Menard 
Middle Tule, 161 
Midland, 121, 152 
Military trails, 73 
Millwee, J. K., 149 
Mill’s Ranch, 121 


INDEX 


241 


Mirages, 171-176 

Missouri, Kansas and Texas Rail¬ 
road, 8 

Montague, 18, 28 
Montague County, 67-68 
Monterey, 195-197 
Mooar Brothers* livery stable, 131 
Mooar’s Draugh, 126 footnote 
Moore, Charles, 22, 27-28 
Moore, W. R., 74 
Motley County, 84 
Munson Nursery, 189 
Mustangs, 108-111, 200-202 

N 

NUN Ranch, 191 
Nave, Abram, see Nave-McCord 
Cattle Company 

Nave-McCord Cattle Company, 125- 
147 

Nesters, 68-69, 190-191 
Newman, Jim, 100 
Nicolette Hotel, 196, 205 
North Llano River, 57, 63-64 
North Tule Canyon, 109 
Northers, 139-142, 171 
Northwest Texas Stock Raiser’s 
Association, 192 
Nunn, John, 191 

o 

O. S. Range, 76 
Oden, Jim, 210 
O’Keefe, C. A., 95-96, 133 
O’Keefe, Gus, see O’Keefe, C. A. 
Old Man Singer’s Store, see Sing¬ 
er’s Store 

One-man outfit, see Trail outfits 
One-Section Act, 232 

P 

Paddle brand, 77 
Palmer, Dick, 136 
Palo Pinto, 30, 32, 33, 35 
Palo Pinto County, 48, 67, 70 
Panhandle, 14, 203 


Panthers, 81, 96-97 
Parker County, 67-68, 70 
Pease River, 20 
Pecos, 121, 133 
Pecos County, 161 
Penasco River, 121, 133 
Percheron, 156 
Petty, Bill, 88-91 
Petty, Tom, 90 

Plainview, 158, 199, 233, 234 
Polecats, 102-103 
Post, 104, 111-112, 178 
Prairie Dog Fork, 20 
Prairie fires, 28, 165-167 

Q 

Quakers, 181, 185 

R 

Railroads, 9-10, 47, 52, 161, 198- 
200, 235 

Ramsey, Henry, 136 

Rattlesnakes, 65 

Rayner, W. E., 194-197 

Ray Town, see Monterey 

Red River, 20, 36, 105 

Red River City, 9, 12 

Religion, 219, 121 

Remudasy 36-37, 134, 201, 218, 224 

Reping, 76, 93-105 

Riding feats, 17-18, 53-54 

Riding feats, see also Bucking, 
Horse-breaking, Roping 
Riding fence, 113 
Roberts, Captain D. W., 58, 66 
Roberts County, 21 
Rodgers, Bob, 197 
Rogers, Jack, 141 
Rollins, Jordan, 218-219 
Roping, 216-218 
Rounding-up outfit, 46 
Round-ups, 33, 67, 76, 95-96, 133- 
137, 142-143, 151-152 
Round-ups, see also Cow-hunts 
Running Water, 160-161 
Rustlers, see Cattle stealing 
Ryan, Ed, 107, 112 


242 


INDEX 


S 

Saddles, 225-227 
Saint James Hotel, 127-128 
St. Louis Cattle Company, 191 
Salt Fork, 78, 82, 102, 135, 136 
San Saba River, 57 
Sandefer, Deputy Sheriff, 162 
Sanders, Van, 78, 81, 90, 216-218 
Sanders, Will, 78, 81-82, 84-87, 90 
Sayers, Governor Joseph D., 191 
Schmeiding, Charles, 192 
Schools, 233 
Scott, Buck, 207 
Scott and Warren, 32-33 
Scurry County, 76-77, 119, 121, 
136, 144, 191 
Sewell, Alf, 16, 50-53 
Shackelford County, 106 
Sharping, see Grubbing and sharp¬ 
ing 

Sheep ranching, 100 
Sheep ranching, see also Williams, 
Z. T., Sheep Ranch 
Sheridan, General Philip, 6 
Sherman, 14 
Shinery, 78-81 
Sibley, Charley, 48-50 
Sieker, Edward, 15, 26, 58 
Sieker, L. B., 15, 26, 58, 65 
Silver Lake, 100 

Singer, George W., 73-74, 195-196 
Singer’s Store, 73-75, 98, 101, 122, 
164, 194, 198 
Slaton, 233 

Slaughter, C. C., 95, 97, 129, 133, 
154 

Slaughter, John B., 77, 95, 97, 126 
Slaughter, Lum, see Slaughter, C. C. 
Slaughter, Will B., 72-73, 76-77, 
84, 87, 103 

Slaughter, Mrs. Will B., 87 
Snakes, 192-193 
Snakes, see also Rattlesnakes 
Snyder, 87, 129-130, 145 
Sorghum raising, 188 
Spring Creek, 125 
Spur Ranch, 133, 199, 216-217 
Spurs, 227 

Square and Compass Ranch, 115, 


125-147, 176-177 
Staking horses, 156-157 
Stampedes, 7, 104, 137, 142 
Stokes, Joe, 216 
Stonewall County, 77, 195 
Stout, German B., 103-104 
Surveying expedition, Panhandle, 
14-27 

Sweeney, Pat, 48-50 
Sweetwater, 56, 114 
Swifts, 193 

T 

T Anchor Ranch, 153, 164, 206 
T Bar Ranch, 191, 206 
Tahoka Cattle Company, 191 
Tarrant County, 106 
Taylor County News, 225 
Texas and Pacific Railroad, 133, 
152 

Texas Central Railroad, 198-200 
Texas Immigrant Aid and Supply 
Society, 14 

Texas Livestock Journal, 71 
Texas Rangers, 57-58, 60, 65-66 
Texas Technological College Cam¬ 
pus, 195, 202 
Thomas, Barney, 57, 

Three H Ranch, 191 
Three-man outfit, see Trail outfits 
Throckmorton, Colonel J. W., 6 
Tierra Blanca, 161, 164 
Tobacco Creek, 161 
Tracks, 60 
Trail outfits, 46-56 
Travois, 23 

Triangle H Triangle range, 131, 
139-141 

Treasure legends, 98 
Tulia, 159, 163 
Turkeys, 37-38, 60, 63 
“22” Ranch, 72-105, 216 
Two Buckle Ranch, 192 
Two Circle Bar Ranch, 76-77 

y 

V V N Ranch, 210 
Valverde County, 161 
Vinegar-roans, 122-123 




INDEX 


243 


W 

Wages, 39, 53, 67, 71, 103, 114, 
135-136, 147, 169 
Waggoner, Dan, Ranch, 18, 20, 28 
Wagoner, Bayless, 139-141 
Walker, H., 34, 102 
Wegefarth, Captain Conrad, 14, 26- 
~~ 27, 58 

Wegefarth County, 14, 21 
Wegefarth expedition, 14-29 
Wells, 145, 149 

Western Land and Livestock Com¬ 
pany, 148-170, 205-220 
Weston, 28, 30 
Wheeler County, 21 
Wheelock, Frank E., 188, 195-197, 
204 

Wheelock, S. W., 148, 160, 205- 
206 

White, John, 182-184 
Wichita Falls, 20 

Williams, Z. T., Sheep Ranch, 75, 
97-98, 149, 232 


Wilson, L. A., 77, 85 
Windmills, 233, 234 
Wise County, 46, 48, 67, 68 
Wolves, 173 

Woody, John W., 112-113 

X 

X, Mr., 30, 35-39, 41, 42, 44, 93 
X I T Ranch, 153, 180 

Y 

Y G Brand, 106, 107 
Yellow House Canyon, 31, 98-99, 
101, 122, 148, 149, 168, 172, 
173, 195 

Yellow House Creek, 73, 75, 77, 
82, 103-104, 106-107, 121, 126 
footnote , 149, 151, 160 - 161, 
164, 190, 191 

Yellow House Fork, 77, 106-108 
Young, Colonel William C., 106- 
108, 113-114, 124-125, 136, 191 
Young School, 233 













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